


Bittersweet and Strange

by EriksChampion



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Romance, Season 0
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3369980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EriksChampion/pseuds/EriksChampion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 0 and Beauty and the Beast-inspired AU. The Pharaoh's pendant was their only hope of salvation: if he could learn to love another, and earn their love in return, the Pendant could be reassembled and his memories would be restored. But as the eons passed, the Pharaoh's heart receded into darkness, and they gradually lost all hope. For who could ever love the embodiment of despair?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue

Thousands of years ago, when the sands of Egypt were still young and the waters of the Nile still untainted and clear, the kingdom of the Pharaoh rested on a beam of shimmering, golden sun.

The Pharaoh’s court lived in splendor and ease, untroubled by any thought of cold or darkness. However, the prosperity of this inner kingdom did not spread far beyond the palace walls, and in the shadowed corners of the city and fallow slopes of the countryside, sharp whispers of dissent began to rattle the air.

The courtiers, shrouded as they were in the dazzling veil of youth and privilege, paid no mind to the rumbling of the common people outside their palace walls—until it was already too late.

Sensing that the time of revolution was at hand, the Pharaoh’s guardian stole away to the outskirts of the kingdom, armed with a book of dark, forbidden magic and an army of one hundred men. They raced against the night to the small village of Kul Elna, where only the most ruthless and desperate dared reside.

Following the text of the forbidden scriptures, the Pharaoh’s guardian performed an ancient ritual that sealed the fate of the villagers of Kul Elna—and his own kingdom. The pharaoh’s army unleased fire and bloodshed on the villagers, forging their spirits into seven mystical and all-powerful items: an Eye, Key, Ring, Necklace, Scale, Scepter, and Pendant. With these items in the possession of the court, the Pharaoh’s guardian believed that his kingdom would forever be safe from whatever danger might dare threaten it.

But there was something the Pharaoh’s guardian did not know: in addition to immense and unspeakable power, these seven Millennium Items also unleashed a great and frightening evil—an evil strong enough to corrupt the hearts of those who wielded them.

When the Pharaoh’s guardian bestowed his new gifts upon the court, their hearts were consumed by a merciless thirst for power, callousness, and cruelty. They turned the dark and mighty magic of the Millennium Items against their own people, and even the wisest of the Pharaoh’s priests and magicians were unable to control the energy contained within. In the battle than ensued, the Millennium Pendant was shattered—taking with it the memories of its bearer—the Pharaoh himself.

The battle cast a dark spell upon the palace. Those who had survived were forced to reside in a gloomy and frightening spirit world—neither alive nor dead, completely estranged from all the joys they had once known. The Pharaoh’s pendant was their only hope of salvation: if the Pharaoh could learn to love another, and earn their love in return, the Pendant could be reassembled, his memories would be restored, and he and his court would find peace in the afterlife. If not, they would be doomed to wander like shadows through the human world for all time.

As the eons passed, the Pharaoh’s heart receded further into darkness, and his courtiers gradually lost all hope. For, whose heart could ever be strong enough to love the embodiment of bitterness and despair?

 

Chapter 1 - Belle

“Hey, Yuugi, look out!”

“Huh?...Ow!” Yuugi winced and rubbed his forehead, glaring at the bright orange basketball as it bounced away and was snatched up by a member of the opposing team.

“Ha—sorry, Yuugi! I guess I didn’t see you there.” Honda sneered and casually tossed the ball towards the basket. “You better look out better next time.”

Jounouchi rolled his eyes and groaned. “Look, Yuugi, if you want to play on my team you have to pay attention.”

“Forget it,” Honda continued, chuckling, “Yuugi’s hopeless at this game. You’d be better off playing with a monkey, Jou. At least a monkey wouldn’t space out in the middle of a game…”

The two exchanged a mischievous glance. “Hey, Yuugi, what were you thinking about just now?”

Yuugi spoke to his shoes. “It’s nothing really, nothing important…”

“Ah, c’mon,” Honda cajoled him. “Important enough that you let yourself get hit in the head with a basketball. Spit it out already.”

Jounouchi Katsuya and Honda Hitoro—the two opposing sides on the spectrum of justice. Jounouchi—the alleged former gangster who never thought twice about talking back to teachers or forcibly procuring pocket money from his classmates (often with the assistance of his fists). In fact, he rarely thought twice about anything at all. And Honda—the twice-elected class president who made no qualm about using his rank to cut in the lunch line and ‘solicit’ academic assistance from his more studious peers during exam season. Sometimes when the exams themselves were still in progress and their teacher was conveniently looking the other way.

Together, with their greasy, brutish faces, crude jokes, and smug voices, they were perfectly cast for the roles of crooked king and enterprising outlaw—figures that loomed both larger than life and significantly larger than Yuugi.

“Well,” Yuugi giggled and tried to hide his inflamed cheeks behind his bangs. “You’ll think it’s stupid, but—” he fished into his pocket and carefully extracted a fistful of notched wooden blocks. “It’s a type of puzzle, you see,” he explained, holding one of the pieces up for Jounouchi to scrutinize. “You have all these different-shaped puzzle pieces, and you have to find a way to put them all together to make one shape. The shapes are usually pretty complex. I’ve completed a simple puzzle like this before, but this one is much harder! I haven’t quite figured it out yet.” His voice became stronger and more steady as he spoke, his eyes larger and brighter. “It’s a lot of fun!”

“Eh, really?” Jounouchi looked skeptical, but accepted the piece that Yuugi placed in his palm. His eyes flashed. “Hey, Honda, catch!” He hurled the piece at Honda, who laughed and darted to the opposite side of the basketball court.

“Looks pretty dumb to me,” he chuckled and threw the piece back at Jounouchi. “You can keep it!”

“Guys, please be careful!” Yuugi pleaded. “If I lose any of the pieces then I won’t be able to complete the puzzle!”

“Why do you bother with stuff like this, Yuugi?” Jounouchi tossed the pieced back on Honda. “When you could be doing something that actually matters?”

“The puzzle does matter to me…”

Jounouchi and Honda snickered. “That’s your problem, Yuugi. You should think less about these stupid games and puzzles and more about normal stuff.”

“…normal stuff?”

“Yeah,” Jounouchi smirked at him. “God, Yuugi, you’re such a little kid, y’know that?”

Yuugi frowned. “Please just give me my puzzle piece back.”

“You hear that—he said _please_! Think we should give it to him, Jou?”

Jounouchi pretended to consider. “Maybe…we should make him work for it!” Jounouchi dangled the puzzle piece a few inches above Yuugi’s head. “Hey Yuugi, how high can you jump?”

“Hey—back off, idiots!” Jounouchi and Honda paled at the voice they heard behind them.

“Oh _shit_!”

“It’s Anzu!”

It was too late to run. Anzu marched onto the basketball court—arms crossed, hips jutting, fiery glare fixed firmly on Honda and Jounouchi. “What do you think you’re doing?!” She demanded. “Can’t you see that’s he hurt? And you continue taunting him? You guys are disgusting.”

“Okay, okay,” Jounouchi winced under the weight of her condemnation. “Chill out, Anzu.” He shoved the puzzle piece back into Yuugi’s fist. “It’s his—happy?”

Anzu turned her attention to Yuugi as the two boys sauntered off, shooting her irritated glares over their shoulders occasionally. “Those boys are so infuriating,” she huffed, teeth on edge. “Are you okay Yuugi? I saw what happened to you…”

“I’m fine, really!” If Yuugi had been blushing before, his cheeks were flaming now.

Anzu bent down closer to examine the bruises that were blossoming on his cheek. “Are you sure? Your face looks kind of swollen. Come with me, I’ll help you clean up.”

Yuugi raced after her towards the school building. Anzu might have been bestowed with the long legs and burgeoning candor of a formerly downy young girl pecking her way into womanhood, but to Yuugi—except for the moments when he was (fruitlessly) trying to sneak a peak down her top—she was the same round-eyed childhood companion who had taught him how to play jacks on the sticky cement blacktop in the park, who he had once made laugh so hard that milk had shot out her nose and she hadn’t been able to drink it for weeks afterwards. In her face he saw the iridescent layers of those tender memories—blinking in and out of focus with the light just like the freckles on her nose.

 “You didn’t have to do that, y’know.”

She sighed. “I know I didn’t have to, Yuugi. It’s just—ugh—boys like that get on my nerves so much! Trying to take advantage of people like that!”

“Take advantage…no it’s not like that,” Yuugi laughed. “We’re friends—we were just playing!”

Anzu’s lips twisted and her pace slowed. “Yuugi—”

Yuugi looked up at her. He was still clenching the puzzle pieces tightly in his chubby fingers. “What is it?”

She shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll tell you another time.”

Anzu led Yuugi back to their classroom, which was empty save one seat in the back.

“Wait here a minute—I’ll go get some ice and towels and I’ll help you with your face.”

When Anzu returned Yuugi was still toying with the pieces of his puzzle, brows furrowed and tongue protruding slightly.

“So this puzzle is really important to you, huh?” Anzu asked as she sat at the desk next to him, wrapping an ice pack in a paper towel.

Yuugi shrugged. “It’s really just for fun. I know I should be better at paying attention, but when I get a new puzzle to solve it’s hard to think about anything else until I find the solution.” He smiled in a way that looked more like an expression of melancholy than contentment. Puzzles were easier than people. Puzzles didn’t hit him the face with basketballs. Puzzles didn’t make him feel as if the world was a secret that everyone was keeping from him—a note hastily scrawled on a scrap of paper and passed around under the tables during class. “I guess that means that I’m not too great at sports, though. The team I’m on always loses…”

Anzu rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry too much about that. You know those boys just use basketball as an excuse to look up girls’ skirts—when they can get the girls to play with them, that is.” Her expression was sour. “It’s despicable. I wonder though, what made you so interested in these types of games?”

“Oh!” This time Yuugi’s smile was whole and his voice sparkled. “I live in a game shop with my grandpa! He gets all the best games and puzzles, and I get to try them all!”

“Hm, gameshop? That’s interesting.”

“Yeah! And he gets all the gaming news, too! There’s this one game—Duel Monsters—that he thinks is really going to take off. He’s been collecting cards for ages, before most people even knew about it, and he has some really cool rare cards. He’s teaching me to duel—though I’m not very good yet.”

“Hm, what is Duel Monsters about?”

“It’s really interesting,” Yuugi effused. “What’s great about it is it’s a really great strategy game, but there is a strong fantasy component as well. You use monster cards to attack your opponent and defend your life points, and magic and trap cards to augment your monsters. Grandpa says you have to build a really strong connection with the monsters in your deck—you have to give them your loyalty and duel with honor—you have to put your heart into your dueling. Otherwise the monsters, even the really powerful ones, aren’t worth anything. Grandpa has a card that he says is the one closest to his heart, the Blue Eyes White Dragon—”

There was a loud crash behind them.

“Hm,” Yuugi turned around to see Kaiba hunched over, picking his book and his jaw up off the floor. “Are you okay, Kaiba-kun?”

“Y-yes!” Kaiba stammered as he shot to his feet and slithered toward them, eyes wide and face slightly paler than usual. “Yuugi, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation—do you also play Duel Monsters?”

“Yeah—“

“And your grandfather is the possessor of one of the legendary Blue Eyes White Dragon cards?” Kaiba leaned closer, and at short range Yuugi could see that while his eyes were clear and placid, his eyelid was twitching slightly.

“Yeah. A good friend gave it to him a long time ago.”

Kaiba stepped away suddenly. “How cool! I myself am a very accomplished Duel Monsters player—and the Blue Eyes White Dragon card is my personal favorite.” He struggled to keep his voice solid and calm, but it was burning at the edges. “If I could—I would love to see it sometime.”

Yuugi beamed. “Of course! Grandpa always says that games are best when shared with friends—I’m sure he’d love to show you his card since it means so much to him.”

Kaiba scoffed slightly. _Friends_.

“We could even duel sometime—I bet you could teach me a lot!”

Kaiba giggled. He had a way of making laughter sound like a chore—a complex technical skill that could only be mastered through endless hours of tireless training and fastidious note-taking. Despite Kaiba Seto’s formidable genius, the end product of his studies was a laugh that conveyed very little humor and that most found profoundly unsettling. Fortunately for Kaiba, Yuugi was not one of them.

“I don’t know, Yuugi. You’d have to be pretty good to be worthy of dueling me. I am the national Duel Monsters champion, and I have hundreds of strong cards and no time to go around giving tips to amateurs like you.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that there were Duel Monster championships! You must be a really strong duelist, Kaiba-kun.”

Kaiba smirked, tossing back his head. “I am. The best in the world. But—” his breath caught. “The Blue Eyes White Dragon! With that card…I would be completely unstoppable!” He grinned, and his dazzling white teeth just barely contained the dark claws of his feral appetite. “I would do _anything_ for that card.” He contorted his face into a ghastly travesty of a smile (like laughter, his smiling skills left much to be desired). “But then again, what kind of duelist would I be if I didn’t share my love of the game with my— _friends_?”

Kaiba began to trace slow circles around Yuugi’s desk, clenching his fists until the knuckles turned white. “Maybe I will help you, Yuugi,” he mused. “And in return, you can do something for me.”

“Sure! Is there something I can help you with?”

Kaiba rolled his eyes. “Please, Yuugi—I’ve never needed help from anyone. Hmph.” As if he had earned all his Duel Monsters trophies by holding hands and having feelings. “In exchange for the privilege of my mentorship, you can let me use your grandfather’s Blue Eyes card!”

Yuugi squirmed. “I don’t know, Kaiba-kun. Grandpa’s pretty protective of that card…”

Kaiba leaned over him, planting his hands on Yuugi’s desk and letting his voice slip into a soft whisper. “Your grandfather couldn’t make just one exception? For me?”

Yuugi could feel himself blushing again, and began to fidget. “Well, maybe under different circumstances, but he’s about to leave town for a while—and I don’t think he’d like it if I let someone use his Blue Eyes without him there to supervise…”

“Your grandfather is absurd,” Kaiba huffed and crossed his arms. “He can’t possibly appreciate the power of that card.”

“He’s just very protective of his treasures…You can come by and see it, though! I’m sure grandpa wouldn’t mind that!”

“Hm, how _generous_.” He rose and began to glide back to his post at the back of the classroom. “I may take you up on that, Yuugi.”

“Ugh, what a creep,” Anzu groaned as soon as Kaiba was once again absorbed in his books. “Did you see the way he was leering at you like that? It weirds me out.”

Yuugi frowned. “I think Kaiba-kun is nice, I think.” He tried to laugh, but the sound came out a little colder than usual. Maybe that was one of the side effects of talking to Kaiba—forgetting how to laugh. “I mean, he loves Duel Monsters—so how bad could he be?”

Anzu frowned. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to find out.”


	2. No Matter What, Wolf Chase

There was one place Yuugi knew where the sun always shone, where voices were always soft and warm, where the air shimmered and blossomed with a kind of attentive vibrancy that Yuugi felt nowhere else. Even when rain tore at the ground; when the sky was frosted, bitter, and cold; when Yuugi couldn’t find a smiling face or kind disposition anywhere else on Earth, the Kame Game Shop was where everything was smooth, soft, and safe where—no matter how often the shelves were restocked or merchandise discontinued—nothing important ever really changed. The walls might have been repainted, the glass cases replaced, and the floor retiled, but the building still embraced him with as much brown sugar and honey affection now as when he was a child—smiling as he learned to sweep the threshold with a broom taller than he was, pouring over the candy-colored puzzle boxes that dazzled him far more than the things they tried to teach him at school.

The bell chimed as he opened the front door—it was always happy to welcome him home.

“I’m back, grandpa!” Yuugi called, shedding his book bag and school jacket behind the cash register.

“I’m back here, Yuugi. Come help me move some of these cases.”

Yuugi followed his grandpa’s voice to the small dusty office in the back of the shop where Sugoruko Mutou was double-checking the contents of his suitcases, brow furrowed in concentration.

“It’s the darndest thing, Yuugi. I’m sure I packed my set of trowels, but now I can’t seem to find them anywhere.”

Yuugi sank next to his grandpa’s precariously-stacked suitcases, each  stuffed just shy of bursting with  heavily creased maps of the Valley of the Kings, mud-crusted sets of old dental tools and blow dryers, stacks of musty history books, canteens, and—snuggly nested on top of his knapsack—his lucky pack of Duel Monsters cards. To ward off the cold and the exhaustion that sometimes settled over dig sites at night, grandpa had said.

Yuugi sighed as he began to shift through the contents of the cases. His grandpa had always been an adventurer at heart. For as long as Yuugi could remember he had been lured by the song of uncharted waters, had chased after the crisp whispers of an unknown dawn that was always just out of reach. And Yuugi had watched and waited by the windowsill with balled fists and watery eyes for the moment of his return—when he would barge through the door bearing new games and new stories of a world that made Yuugi feel impossibly fragile and small. Yuugi always tried to smile and ignore the fissures forming in his heart.

“Yuugi…” Sugoruko placed a hand on his grandson’s shoulder. “I’ll only be gone for a week. And just think, when I come back I’ll have some amazing new puzzles for you to solve!”

Yuugi looked up and smiled softly. “I know. Thanks, grandpa—I can’t wait to see them!”

“Yuugi, oh dear,” Sugoruko took Yuugi’s chin in his hand and pulled him slightly closer. “What happened to your face?”

“Oh, nothing.” Yuugi pulled away and kept his eyes downcast, pretending to repack one of his grandpa’s cases. “It was an accident.”

“Hm.” Sugoruko crossed his arms and surveyed Yuugi’s face the same way he might an ancient Mesopotamian burial ground. Since entering high school the frequency of the accidents that left Yuugi stumbling home from school with a bruised eye or busted lip had increased significantly. But Yuugi had never mentioned them—he had never mentioned his school life much at all.

Sugoruko took a seat on an upturned crate. “Yuugi, is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

Yuugi shook his head but answered anyway. “I wish you didn’t have to go.” His voice trembled.

Sugoruko sighed. “I hate leaving you alone here, Yuugi. I wonder is there someone you could invite over—to keep you company while I’m gone?”

Yuugi didn’t answer for several moments, choosing instead to stack and restack the travel guides in the corner of one of the suitcases. When he did speak, his voice came out in crystalline, wavering syllables that seemed to disappear before they had ever truly had a chance to fully materialize. “I don’t know.”

Sugoruko ran his fingers through his beard, trying to dig through his old, dusty cases of memories for a few sun-splotched recollections of when Yuugi had babbled on and on about his gang of amiable allies while helping to re-stock the shelves. Sugoruko had never paused to consider how much time had passed since those days, how it seemed that his peers had shot up like bamboo sprouts and left Yuugi still a tender sprout struggling for sunlight and fresh air. How Yuugi had grown so old, and yet remained so young.

“What about, hm…Anzu? You used to talk about her quite a bit.”

Yuugi shrugged, not looking any less dejected. “Anzu is nice, but she mostly hangs out with other girls now. We haven’t been real friends in years. And besides,” his frown deepened. “She thinks I’m a wimp—she just feels bad for me.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t think that—”

“Of course she does!” Yuugi exclaimed, standing suddenly. “Everybody does!” His fists were clenched tight, face searing with clumsily suppressed anger.

“And what do you think, Yuugi? Do you think that you’re a wimp?” Yuugi was silent, but his dim eyes, slumped shoulders, and stubbornly protruding lip spoke of a sadness too profound to require articulation.

“I wish I was as brave as you,” he whispered. “I—I wish I wasn’t so afraid of…everything.”

“Yuugi…” Sugoruko patted the spot next to him on the crate. “Come here. There is something important I’d like to show you.”

Yuugi complied, sinking to his grandfather’s side.

“Do you remember what I told you about what it means to have the heart of a duelist?”

“A true duelist duels with all his heart.”

“And puts his heart into every card of his deck.” Sugoruko held his cards between the two of them, fanning them out so that the claws of the fearsome monsters and swords and smoke on the magic cards caught and shimmered in the light. “I spent years assembling this deck, Yuugi. And I put a little bit of my heart into each and every card in it. Now, whenever I duel, and wherever I go, I know I have a little band of brave spirits besides me, spirits who would do anything for me. And I would do anything for them. They help me find my courage when I think I’ve lost it. And Yuugi—that’s a very important part of being brave, being able to trust others to help you when you can’t make it through on your own. It takes a lot of courage to trust that way.”

He carefully leafed through his deck, gazing at each card with reverence. “Yuugi, you have the kindest and most trusting heart of anyone I know, and that makes you incredibly brave. But—” he restacked his cards and placed them in Yuugi’s palm. “I want you to have these—in case you ever forget.”

“B-but—Grandpa!” Yuugi stammered! “I can’t possibly take these! These cards are so important to you…”

Sugoruko wrapped his arm around Yuugi’s shoulders and planted a kiss on his forehead. “Not nearly as important as you.”

Yuugi smiled like the first breath of spring washing away bleak memories of winter. “Thank you, grandpa. I’ll take great care of them.”

“I know you will.” Sugoruko patted Yuugi on the back and rose. “Ah, there are those trowels—right where I thought they’d be! Too many cobwebs in this old brain of mine…”

Yuugi giggled, clutching his grandpa’s deck close to his chest, as if to feel the hearts of his new monsters fluttering alongside his own. “Tell me again about the Egyptian puzzle.”

Sugoruko snickered. The legend of the Millennium Puzzle had been his favorite bedtime story since his infancy. “You probably know it better than I do at this point, why don’t you tell me?”

“I like the way you tell it.”

“Well, alright then,” Sugoruko paused, wiping his hands on his overalls. “Let’s see…once upon a time, in ancient Egypt, a great pharaoh and his courtiers lived in an enchanted castle. They were powerful sorcerers, and used their formidable magic to rule their kingdom with fairness and reason. But, a terrible war broke out and threatened to tear the kingdom apart. In order to save it, the pharaoh cast a powerful spell that shattered his magical pendant, turning it into the Millennium Puzzle and destroying his own memories. The Puzzle broke so completely that no one in the pharaoh’s court could reassemble it. It is said that only one with a pure heart can put the puzzle back together, and when they do, that person will be granted one wish in return for their kindness and compassion. But the pieces of the puzzle remain buried in the sands of the Valley of the Kings, and no one has yet been able to find them, let alone put the puzzle back together.”

“And you’re going to find the puzzle.”

Sugoruko chuckled. “That’s the plan.”

“And solve it.”

“Hm, I don’t know about that. It is said that the puzzle is incredibly complicated.” He smiled over his shoulder at Yuugi. “You might want to give it a try, though.”

Yuugi smiled and blushed. “I don’t know…I’m still working on this last one that you gave me…”

“Hm. Just give it time and keep trying, Yuugi. I’m sure the solution will come to you when you’re least expecting it.”

Yuugi continued to smile down at his new cards, gently caressing their faces with his fingertips. “I think I might have made a new friend today, Grandpa.”

“That’s wonderful, Yuugi! Tell me about this friend of yours.”

“His name is Kaiba. He is a Duel Monsters expert! We’re going to duel together and he’s going to help me improve.”

Sugoruko ruffled Yuugi’s hair. “I’m glad. But if he’s really that good I’ll have to take a turn against him sooner or later.” He smiled ruefully. “You know I can’t let these young upstarts get too full of themselves.”

-xxx-

“It’s supposed to be somewhere around here…” Sugoruko squinted at his map. “Would you mind bringing the lamp a little closer, Arthur?”

Professor Hopkins stepped closer, peering over his friend’s shoulder. He didn’t speak, but Sugoruko could tell that the long, hot hours spent roaming the desert day after day had begun to take a toll—Arthur’s shoulders were sagging, his gaze—while kind and warm as ever—was becoming distant and dejected.

“Perhaps it’s hopeless, Sugoruko,” he sighed. “Perhaps the university was correct—there never has been any evidence that the legend of the Millennium Puzzle is any more than that…a legend.” The battles that Professor Hopkins had fought over the years in university halls and at academic conferences had worn wrinkles in his face and etched his voice with a vein of disillusionment. He had grown accustomed to derision, but disappointment—hope slowly wasting away to shadows and ash—was a new sensation that made him feel more blank and black than the starless night sky encroaching upon them.

“Don’t speak that way, Arthur. We’ve only explored a small fraction of the Valley, I’m sure if we keep looking we’ll find the ancient palace.”

Arthur shook his head. “I envy your optimism, old friend. But this has been a decades-long journey for me, and with only scant physical evidence…well, I suppose I’m just getting tired.”

Sugoruko squeezed Arthur’s shoulder. “I understand. Why don’t you go back to the tent early to rest and I’ll join you in a couple hours.”

Arthur frowned. “Are you sure, Sugoruko?  The desert is not particularly forgiving to solitary travelers.”

Sugoruko smiled. “I’ll be fine. The desert can never really harm anyone who approaches it with the appropriate sense of adventure and respect.”

Arthur smiled. “If you insist. Though do remember to be careful.”

It wasn’t until Arthur’s silhouette sank into the horizon that Sugoruko noticed the way the desert cold—so much more harsh and absolute than what he experienced in Japan—seemed to sink talons into his skin and gnaw on his bones. It was a cold that turned his heart into twisted stone; that made any memory of sunshine, warmth, or happiness feel decrepit and sour.

Sugoruko clenched his arms tighter around his chest and tried to trudge on through the darkness with only his faintly flickering lamp for guidance. He shuddered when it cast demonic shadows across the sands— jagged fangs and pitiless claws that all pointed directly to him, and seemed to be creeping closer.

There was a feeling Sugoruko knew, the eerie silence, the tense stillness of the world just before an earthquake. It was like the soles of his feet, the back of his neck, the pit of his stomach could see something that his eyes could not, could still speak to the small shadowy corners of the human mind that had been nearly but not quite obliterated by centuries of technological advance. It was the feeling that the world was about to fundamentally change, that a molten force imprisoned in the center of the earth was about to rupture the surface, to tear apart everything familiar and make the world rattle on its axis. And there was no way to escape.

Sugoruko held his breath, listening to the low rumble of the barren horizon. And then there was the crash. His lamp went out, and the shadows attacked.

-xxx-

“Oh, you’ve really done it this time, Priest!” Mahaad exclaimed, eyes wide and voice strained with exasperation. He huffed. “Just wait until the Pharaoh hears about this!”

Seth shrugged. “The Pharaoh has more important matters to attend to than a little construction project.”

Mahaad rushed towards the crumbling columns behind him, furiously muttering incantations (clearly it was too much to ask the Priest to even pretend to be helpful). The crumbled stones began to mend themselves and slip back into their proper places—reconstructing the wall and columns that comprised his preferred side of the dueling arena. “You truly are an agent of chaos,” he muttered. “If you simply learned to temper your attacks we wouldn’t all have to rush around cleaning up after you.”

“And where would be the fun in that? What’s the point of holding back when I’m capable of so much?” He crossed his arms and stuck out his chin, smirking. “And besides,” he drawled, “it’s hardly my fault that you consistently prove to be such an unworthy opponent. I would have thought that a thousand years of practice would have done you some good, but apparently I was mistaken.”

Mahaad snorted. “One can never fully prepare oneself for the unrestricted callousness of your underhanded tactics.”

“ _Callousness_? _Underhanded_?” Seth gaped and clutched his chest in a great show of indignation. “You must have me mistaken for someone else.” He put down his arm, releasing his stone dueling tablets and allowing them to fall to the ground with enough force to rattle the duel arena. Mahaad winced and shot him a sharp, dirty glare as a few more chunks of rubble fell from the ceiling. “I _never_ duel with nothing less than the highest degree of honor and dignity. You’re just a sore loser.”

Mahaad watched as Seth prowled between his dueling tablets, assiduously assessing the damage that been done to each monster during their combat. “You’re insufferable.”

Seth flashed him a wolfish grin. “I’m flattered you still feel that way. I was afraid that after a few millennia I’d begin to bore you…”

Mahaad rolled his eyes. “Believe me, Priest—” He froze midsentence, eyes wide and skin prickling. “Did you hear something?”

“Nothing but the start of another one of your punitive tirades—though to be honest I’ve learned to mostly tune those out.”

“Oh would you—just listen!” The two stood in tense silence for a few moments until a weak, strained murmur began to echo down the corridor.

“It sounds like…a man,” Mahaad whispered.

“That’s not possible.”

“It is perfectly possible, thanks to you.” Mahaad turned on him, eyes blazing. The vein in his forehead was throbbing again. Seth seemed to be the only one capable of making it do that. “He must have fallen in when _you_ made the roof collapse,” he seethed between tightly gritted teeth.

To his dismay, Seth’s eyes brightened. They only shone that way when he was scheming something truly awful. “Well, Sorcerer,” he sighed. “It looks like our evening just became significantly more _interesting_.”

“No, Seth. You know the rules—we immediately report intruders to the Pharaoh. No Exceptions, no—”

But Seth was already gliding down the shadowy corridor, triumphantly twirling his scepter. Of course Mahaad had no choice but to trail begrudgingly behind him, muttering curses under his breath (“I’d rather babysit Mana…”).

Seth followed the trail of agonized echoes that reverberated off the walls and pooled in sorrowful puddles on the floor. His fingers stung with the acute impatience of sharply piqued hunger. He could feel his teeth grow sharper, his heart grow blacker, as he approached the source of the disturbance—the crumbled, dust-coated figure of an old man crumbled on the floor, trembling slightly in what Seth presumed to be pain.

Licking his lips, he paced slow circles around the figure. It had been so long since he had fed the shadows festering inside him, and they were so very hungry…

“Please--!” the figure gasped. “Someone, great Pharaoh, please—help me…”

Seth froze. “You dare speak the name of the Pharaoh in vain, stranger?!” he snarled, grabbing the man by the back of his head and forcing his face into the pungent light emitted by his Millennium Item.

“What is it?” Mahaad asked, approaching from behind.

“I don’t know, but he claims to know the Pharaoh…”

Sugoruko squinted at the two figures looming above him. Even in the semidarkness their faces struck him as oddly familiar—though the sinister energy they emitted, the way they made his stomach turn—certainly did not.

“Am…am I dead?”

Callow laughter. “You may wish for death, once I am finished with you.”

Another voice, sharp and patronizing. “Don’t speak that way! If this man knows the Pharaoh…”

The two faces moved closer, and the opaque puzzle pieces that had been floating in the corners of Sugoruko’s rattled mind suddenly snapped together. “You!” he exclaimed. “The—bearers of the Millennium Ring! And Scepter!” It was impossible, but there was no mistaking it. It was mostly the headdresses that gave them away. Sugoruko would have recognized those anywhere. “So the legends are true! But…how—how are you…”

He tentatively extended a hand that went directly through Mahaad’s chest. “This is incredible!”

Mahaad’s nose crinkled in displeasure as he grasped Sugoruko’s arm and rather forcibly retracted it from his chest. “What legends do you speak of, stranger?”

Sugoruko coughed. “The legends of the great Pharaoh, the master of the Millennium Items and bearer of justice and reason, beacon of kindness to all those fortunate enough to reside in his realm…”

Mahaad and Seth exchanged quizzical glances.

“Well, that settles it,” Seth announced. “This man is not only injured but mentally unsound. To sacrifice his soul now would truly be the greatest kindness.”

Sugoruko’s eyes widened and his voice turned shallow and dry. His limbs felt numb. He was getting that earthquake feeling again. “Sacrifice my soul…what do you mean…?”

“We shouldn’t be hasty,” Mahaad scolded him. “This man has a connection with the Pharaoh—and to us, it seems—we should at least determine whether—”

“Knows the Pharaoh, does he?” Seth sneered. “ ‘bearer of justice and reason, beacon of kindness,’ tell me, does that sound like any pharaoh _you_ know? It certainly doesn’t sound familiar to me.” He scoffed. “Our Pharaoh is no beacon of anything. I’d describe him more as—”

Mahaad’s strained expression forced him to stop. And then Seth felt it too. The fetid shadows that made their skin dissolve like acid, the roaring silence, the way the air seemed to both go stale and begin to boil—all of it indicative of one thing.

Sugoruko’s eyes darted from one face to the other, unsure which perturbed him more. If there was a force in this world that could make the hearts of these two spirits shrivel in fear, then he was sure he wanted nothing to do with it.

“What do we have here?” Sugoruko felt the voice rather than heard it. It was like being pulled apart with a pair of tweezers, like being nailed to his own coffin.

“Pharaoh!” The one closer to him, the bearer of the Millennium Ring, knelt immediately, shaking so strongly that Sugoruko could feel the air tremble.

Something was coming closer, but Sugoruko could not tell exactly what. The ground seemed to be sinking around him, pulling him down to the center of the earth. The darkness was broiling—burning him, clouding his vision and his voice with smoke and ash.

“An intruder? And you did not report his presence to me at once?”

“I thought that—perhaps we might attend to the matter of this man’s soul ourselves…”

A growl. “I, and I alone will be the judge of that. Bring him to me.”

Sugoruko felt a force push his body forward, though no being was touching him. As he came closer he could just barely distinguish a teeming mess of thorny shadows, a feral grin, and a pair of eyes that smoldered like embers.

“Tell me, stranger—would you like to play a game?”


	3. Me, Belle (Reprise)

Kaiba Seto was nothing if not industrious. Actually, that was putting it far too lightly. Kaiba Seto was nothing if not unabashedly inconsiderate, zealously self-serving, and devastatingly, meticulously cruel. By the supposedly tender age of sixteen, he had put companies out of business more times that he had celebrated his birthday, driven more rival CEOs into alcoholism than he had classmates (or friends), and had acquired more Duel Monsters trophies than Yuugi had cards.

It was no coincidence that his prowess in the boardroom had risen in step with his skill in the duel arena: the years spent being shepherded between orphanages, scrambling for scraps of recognition alongside scraps of bread, the stringent tutelage of his adopted father, and Kaiba’s naturally ambitious and competitive nature had joined forces to produce a boy both capable of sending men three or four times his age reeling  into downward spirals of misery and completely incapable of making compromises or bestowing a modicum of compassion on any unfortunate creature—including himself.

And yet, despite his multifarious accomplishments, something was still missing. A naïve observer might have guessed that it was the healing bonds of friendship, a healthy creative outlet, or perhaps even the clear conscience and profound mindfulness that can only be attained through years of extensive and excruciating therapy that Kaiba’s life was severely lacking—but that was not the case. Not even close.

With great effort, Kaiba contorted his features into the closest facsimile of a cheerful smile that he could manage as he entered the Kame Game shop. His inner scowl deepened once he stepped over the threshold.

“Kaiba-kun!” Yuugi exclaimed from behind the cash register. “I wasn’t expecting you to come by so soon!”

“But Yuugi, you must have known how _excited_ I am to…see you.” His hand tightened around his briefcase and his eyes flickered around the shop. Where could it be? The magnificence of the Blue Eyes White Dragon hardly belonged among these ratty old puzzle boxes and gaudy game boards.

Yuugi rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I wasn’t sure…” There was something in the exacting intensity of Kaiba’a gaze that made him feel squeamish and warm.

“Don’t be silly, Yuugi-kun,” Kaiba laughed (“Ha Ha Ha”) and clasped Yuugi’s shoulder. “There is nothing I value more than spending time with my friends.”

Yuugi squirmed slightly but his smile didn’t falter. Kaiba’s fingertips were biting into his shoulder blade.

“Well, uh, do you want to look around first? My grandpa’s shop has the coolest games!”

Kaiba bit the inside of his lip. His impatience was burning through him. He smiled. “Of course!”

Kaiba followed Yuugi up and down the aisles of the game shop, half-listening to him prattle on about how much he loved playing marbles and magic and…musical chairs? He wasn’t really paying attention. Every cell in his body was attuned to the dragon— _his dragon_ —trying to divine its location. He was having trouble keeping his breathing steady. Making friends was exhausting. And irritating.

“Kaiba-kun, do you play any games besides Duel Monsters?”

“Chess. Occasionally.”

“That’s all?”

Kaiba sighed. “I don’t usually have the time to dabble in hobbies that don’t prove worthwhile. I would rather hone my skills in one or two games and become the strongest player in those few than perform mediocrely in several.”

Yuugi’s eyes widened. “You mean you never play just for fun?”

Kaiba shrugged (somewhat clumsily, as if he were just trying out the gesture for the first time and hadn’t yet perfected its mechanics). “My work keeps me busy.”

Yuugi nodded. “Yeah I bet—preparing to take over your own company! That must be hard.”

“It’s nothing that I can’t handle.”

“But to have no time just to have fun! I can’t imagine…”

“Don’t worry about me, Yuugi-kun. Being the heir to Kaiba Corporation may be time-consuming, but it also affords me certain opportunities. Like this—” he held out his briefcase.

Yuugi’s eyes swelled. “Huh, what’s in there?”

Kaiba smiled, and this time it was entirely, violently genuine. Yuugi shivered and he wasn’t sure why.

“These are _my_ Duel Monsters cards.”

-xxx-

“I was wondering, Yuugi-kun, if I could ask you for a favor before we begin.”

Yuugi looked up from laying out the Duel Monsters game board. “Uh, yeah, of course!”

“Could I…see your Blue Eyes White Dragon card?” He had been trying to keep his voice calm and casual, but even Yuugi could pick up on the frantic pins and needles that jutted out at erratic intervals.

“Yeah…sure…” Yuugi tenderly leafed through the stack of cards that grandpa had bestowed upon him. His heart stung slightly. He hadn’t heard from grandpa at all since he arrived at the dig site…

Yuugi shook his head, trying to banish the fearful thoughts that made everything look murky and cold.

He was alright. He had to be alright.

The card trembled in Kaiba’s fingers. He marveled at the light that danced off its surface, illuminating every fang, scale, and talon with ethereal, heart-wrenching glory. He shivered even though he felt like he had been set on fire.

This was what Kaiba’s life was missing—for those of you who were still wondering. The end of his journey, and the beginning. The culmination of his struggles. The antidote to the poison that festered in his heart. Power. Freedom. Hope.

“It’s beautiful,” he murmured. “You are very lucky to have been given this card.”

“Yeah, I know,” Yuugi chimed. “It means so much to my grandpa. And it’s so rare! I heard it got discontinued because it was too powerful. Hardly any were made, only something like—”

“Four,” Kaiba whispered. His eyes—which had for a moment become cloudy and distant—suddenly snapped back into focus and began to drill into Yuugi’s face with a bitter alacrity that sent chills down his spine.“Yuugi,” the softness in his voice was fraying rapidly. “What would you say if I offered to trade you for this card?”

Before Yuugi had a chance to reply, Kaiba opened his briefcase on the card table, revealing thousands of Duel Monsters cards. Some he had only seen pictures of in guidebooks, some he had never heard of at all.

“Take as many as you want, Yuugi.” His voice a low, raspy hiss now.

“Wow, Kaiba-kun!” Yuugi gasped. “That’s very generous of you, but—” His eyes were beginning to sting, his bottom lip to tremble. Grandpa was all the way across the world, but the card was here. He shook his head, and there were now a few tears shimmering on his eyelashes. “I’m sorry, Kaiba-kun, but I can’t do that. This card was very important to grandpa, so it’s important to me, too. It makes me feel closer to him. With this card…I don’t feel so—alone.” Yuugi shut the briefcase and nudged it in Kaiba’s direction. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Kaiba’s eyelid twitched and his lips curled into a viciously sympathetic smirk. “Of course. I _understand_ , Yuugi. I wouldn’t dream of separating you from a card that clearly means so much to you.” He placed his briefcase back on the floor and extended his hand towards Yuugi. “Here you go. As much as I love this card, I won’t mention it again.”

Yuugi nodded, accepting the Blue Eyes that Kaiba presented to him.

But the moment his fingers met its surface, something felt—off. There was no life in the card he held, no wisdom, no warmth. There was no trace of grandpa.

Kaiba didn’t notice Yuugi’s perturbed expression—too focused on listening to the fluttering of the little soul now trapped in his pocket.

“Come on, Yuugi,” he giggled, shuffling his deck with sharp fingers. “Let’s play!”

-xxx-

Curled up on the floor an hour later, Yuugi still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. How had things grown so dark so quickly?

He had known that there was something wrong with that card. But—he had wanted so badly to believe that it was his imagination, that Kaiba-kun (Kaiba) would never betray him like that.

Had it been so wrong to believe?

Yuugi began to pick the cards up from where they were scattered on the floor. As reserved and sophisticated as Kaiba purported to be, he hadn’t seemed to have had many (any) reservations about erupting into a caustic blast of brutish indignation and storming out in a fury when he lost their match.

It had started innocently enough. Kaiba certainly did have a lot of rare and powerful cards and at first Yuugi had been thrown, struggling to understand the special effects of monsters whose names he had never heard before. But he had always been a quick learner, and they had just been playing for fun—hadn’t they?

In hindsight, Yuugi should have noticed that Kaiba became increasingly irritated and erratic as his life points drained away, he should have noticed the rising bitterness in his voice, he should have noticed the storm clouds forming on his face, he should have—

Yuugi buried his face in his hands, finally releasing the sobs that had been sealed in between his ribs.

_“You know you’re going up against a real Duel Monsters expert, Yuugi. Do you think you can win?”_

_Yuugi laughed and averted his eyes. “I don’t know. But no matter what happens, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot.”_

Yuugi combed through the cards on the floor. He wanted to find it but he didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to believe that something so horrible had caught him so utterly by surprise…

_Yuugi had dueled Kaiba into a tight corner. Down 1200 life points and with no monsters on the field to defend himself. His eyes had started doing that weird twitching thing again. He didn’t want to resort to this, hadn’t prepared himself for it. But his vision was narrowing in on the one thing that was keeping him alive—the one thing in life that mattered. His victory, once so certain, was escaping him. And there was nothing in his hand and nothing on the field that could save him._

_Kaiba swallowed (his mouth tasted like acid) and gingerly reached into his pocket._

_“Wh—Kaiba-kun—how?”_

_Yuugi rifled through his deck until finding the Blue Eyes card that Kaiba had returned to him. Only, it wasn’t_ his _Blue Eyes card. He could see that clearly now. Not only did it bear no trace of grandpa’s heart, it had no heart at all. Yuugi traced a fingertip along the surface of the counterfeit and felt cold._

_“Kaiba-kun…why?”_

_Kaiba’s fingers curled around the Blue Eyes that he had laid on the field. Yuugi’s Blue Eyes._

_“It takes more than dumb luck to be worthy of wielding this card,” he sneered. “You don’t have the strength—or the skill—to deserve this card or this victory.”_

_“K-Kaiba-kun! Please give it back! That’s my grandpa’s—”_

_“You think I care about your stupid grandfather?!” He snarled, bearing all his teeth. He pounded his fists against the table, making it jump. “You’re stupid to think that this game is all about making friends and having fun!” His breath was sharp and cold. “This game is about life, and life is about winning at all costs.” He crossed his arms and smirked. “But I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand that.”_

_Yuugi hadn’t been able to tear his eyes from the dragon card on the table. It seemed to be calling out to him, begging for rescue. He bit his bottom lip to keep it from trembling._

_“Someone like me?” He whispered, voice on the verge of breaking._

_“Someone too cowardly and weak to see this world for what it really is. Now make your last pathetic move so I can finish you, Yuugi.”_

Was that really what he was? A coward? Yuugi had kept his eyes clenched closed when he flipped over his face-down card. He had flinched and cowered when Kaiba had kicked the table over. But he hadn’t felt afraid—truly afraid—until he had seen Kaiba towering over him—malice dripping from his eyes and the Blue Eyes held captive and helpless between his fingers.

_“If this card is useless to me, then—”_

_Yuugi saw a blast of lightning and heard the roar of thunder._

It couldn’t have happened. Kaiba never would have—

But no. He would and he did. Yuugi trembled as he picked up one piece, then the other. The Blue Eyes White Dragon—the most powerful and majestic card in all of Duel Monsters—had been ripped in half. Yuugi clutched the pieces tight against his chest, no longer attempting to hold back the frantic, desperate sobs that wracked his body.

“I’m sorry, grandpa,” he moaned. “I’m so, so sorry…”

There was a knock at the door.

-xxx-

“I don’t understand,” Yuugi murmured, voice black. But that wasn’t exactly true—he was refusing to understand.

Professor Hopkins sighed and rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry, Yuugi. The truth is that I don’t quite understand it myself. I returned to the final site we investigated together several times…but I couldn’t find a trace of him anywhere. He seems to have simply—disappeared.” He frowned. Several new creases had sprouted across his face in the past 24 hours. “If only I had listened to my better judgment and not let him go out there alone…”

He reached across the table to grasp Yuugi’s hand, but Yuugi recoiled from his touch.

“That’s just not possible. Grandpa would never put himself into danger like that.”

“I know, Yuugi. But sometimes these things are just…out of our control.”

Yuugi was still staring at the tattered pieces of the Blue Eyes White Dragon on the table. Maybe he would never be able to play it again, but he could still feel it. In the cold and dark of the back office it seemed to radiate warmth and light. The small silver soul inside still pulsated with vibrancy, comfort, and love. Not even Kaiba and his senseless cruelty could destroy that.

“I won’t let you down,” he whispered. Blue Eyes seemed to smile. “Not again. I can’t.” He met Professor Hopkins’s eyes. “We’re not going to give up on him. Take me there—I’ll find him myself if I have to.”


	4. Home, reprise

Yuugi’s head was throbbing, his eyes beginning to ache. The harsh desert heat made the horizon steam and shimmer—obscuring the silhouette of their distant camp site in a thick layer of angry molten shadows.

Professor Hopkins’ frown deepened as he watched Yuugi stumble through the sand. He had gone hours without speaking, without stopping—barely drinking any water. And as steadfast as his heart may have been, his small body was clearly hovering on the brink of collapse.

“Yuugi!” He called. “Yuugi—I’m sorry, but…it—it may be time to call it off for the day.”

For a moment he thought that Yuugi had not heard him. He continued starring pointedly into the distance, swaying slightly, frowning. When he did finally reply, his words were nearly small enough to vanish into the emptiness that stretched out around them.

“I’m not going back without him.”

Professor Hopkins sighed, approaching him gingerly. “Yuugi…you know I want to find your grandfather just as much as you do, but you can’t keep going on like this. You need to rest—and return to school. If something were to happen to you too I would never forgive myself….”

Yuugi shook his head, at first slowly and then furiously. His eyes swelled and his lips trembled. “No—I’m not giving up. Not now.” He sank to his hands and knees, tears beginning to mingle with the sweat dripping down his chin. “I know that you’re trying to help, b-but you don’t understand. I-I can’t go back! Not like this…” He buried his hands in the sand and balled them into fists. “I can’t…” Not back to a world of brutish faces and broken promises, not back to a world that had fallen apart when he was only just beginning to learn how to piece it together. Not without grandpa.

Professor Hopkins knelt beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I know, Yuugi. But it’s for the best this way. We’ll send out a proper search party, I promise. I think it’s time for you to go back home.”

“No.” Yuugi sobbed. “He… _he is my home_.”

Yuugi’s voice began to crack, and the surface of the earth seemed to break as well. His shoulders shook and the ground began to shake harder.

“W-what’s going on?” Yuugi stammered and scrambled to his feet.

“I’m afraid I don’t know…”

The two only had time to exchange one frantic, fleeting glance before the earth gave way completely and Yuugi disappeared into a world of utter darkness.

-xxx-

“P-professor Hopkins?” Yuugi rubbed his forehead, stumbled to his feet, and opened his eyes.

His eyes, however, had already been open.

Yuugi was engulfed in suffocating blackness—shadow that seemed to percolate through his skin and smother every kind or hopeful thought.

“Is anyone there? Hello?” His voice bounced off cold, cavernous walls—then crashed down around him like a sheet of ice. He shivered. “Where am I?”

“Somewhere you most certainly do not belong.”

Yuugi felt as if a sizzling fist had collided with his stomach. His eardrums throbbed crimson.

“Who’s there?”

A low, velvety chuckle. A slick glimmer of gold that made Yuugi feel as though he had been sliced down the center.

“H-hello? Who are you?”

The air sizzled, then erupted in a flash of searing light—revealing a figure bearing sweeping white robes, an entire armory’s worth of gold, and a paralyzing—murderous—grin.

“I can assure you that it is in your best interest not to know the answer to that question.”

Yuugi’s heart clawed at the inside of his ribcage, all the air seeped out of his lungs. But his feet remained rooted to the ground. There was something in this figure—a being who seemed to be stranded halfway between humanity and this demonic world crafted entirely out of nightmares—that struck him as oddly familiar.

“D-Do you know where my grandpa is?”

The spirit paused, somewhat taken aback. “Your what?”

There was a loud gasp behind them, briefly expunging the darkness with the uninhibited lavender sparkle of springtime. A pair of large, twinkling eyes fluttered in the darkness.

“That old man is your _grandfather_?!”

“Uh…yeah!” Yuugi’s eyes darted from one shadowy face to another—one sinister and severe, the other subtle and soft. “Has he…been here? I’m sorry for the inconvenience—I’ve just been out looking for him and I kind of…well…fell in.”

Seth turned to the girl beside him. “And I presume that I have _you_ to blame for this?”

“Hey—it wasn’t me! And besides, everybody knows it’s _your_ fault that the old guy fell in in the first place,” she giggled. “Master Mahaad told us _all about it_!”

“So, that’s how he chose to tell it,” he seethed.

“You know that Master doesn’t lie or exaggerate—unlike _some people I know_ …”

“Um…excuse me? I…was—can you tell me where my grandpa is?”

Seth’s eyes flickered shut, and when he opened them again they seemed to brim with enough fire and odium to reduce his soul to ash. He cracked his knuckles. “I’m afraid that will not be possible.”

“W-what do you mean?” Yuugi’s voice was beginning to break again. For a moment he was back on the basketball court, crumpled in a corner, tensing up in anticipation of the blows—boxing his ears to drown out the jeering voices. He was curled up in a ball on the floor of the game shop, furiously pretending that if he tried hard enough he could fit the pieces of his grandpa’s card back together and everything would go back to the way it had been before (before _what_ , he wasn’t entirely sure). The world was the silence at the bottom of a well, the loneliness that hung in the air at midnight, the fear that flashes through the body right before sleep—the fear of never waking up.

“I—you—I have to find him so we can go home!”

The girl frowned. “Sorry—you’re new so you probably don’t understand. No one leaves here.”

All the blood drained to Yuugi’s ankles. He was having trouble breathing. “No one...?”

She shrugged and quirked her head to the side. “Well, no one ever has.”

“But—no one—” Everything was sinking, swimming in endless, static, screaming darkness. Yuugi tried to speak several times, but could voice nothing but desperate, splintered sobs.

“Yuugi—is that you?”

 “Grandpa!” Yuugi shouted blades and arrows into the shadows, but they only came crashing back down upon him. The girl looked on with pursed lips and a knitted brow. The man crossed his arms and smirked.

“Grandpa! Where are you?!” He collapsed—gasping—to his knees, straining his eyes to see through the darkness until they began to ache.

The air started to burn. Yuugi coughed and clutched his chest, but even as his vision was beginning to blur, he could still glimpse—just barely—the figure of his grandpa floating before him.

“Grandpa!” Yuugi rushed forward—but halted a step from his grandfather’s embrace. His expression bore no warmth; his eyes were dark and vacant.

“…Grandpa? C’mon, let’s go! We have to get out of here!” Yuugi began to tug at his arm, but recoiled instantly. His skin was cold and stiff.

“Grandpa!” Yuugi screamed and shuddered. “W-what happened?” He turned to the spirits beside him. “What did you do to him!”

“Your grandfather’s soul got exactly what it deserved.” A voice that could crush coal into diamonds, that could drain all the heat from the center of the earth, that could purge the sky of all its stars. “He should not have trespassed here.”

Yuugi had spent years learning to recognize the voice of impending doom. And he had learned that, when faced with the churlish growl of boys with twice his muscle mass and half his empathy, the safest—the smartest—thing to do was turn around and run away as fast as his legs could carry him. But in that moment, trembling in the darkness, his heart beating nothing but cold water, all the lessons he had learned were swept away. Yuugi turned around.

 “Let him go—please.”

The spirit’s voice curled like a billow of smoke. “Your grandfather must pay the price for his impudence. I have no reason to free him until he has learned to respect the sacred ground that he has defiled.”

Yuugi shuddered down to his bone marrow. “W-whatever he did I’m sure he didn’t mean it! Grandpa would never hurt anyone on purpose.”

“He dishonored my sanctuary,” a smirk as slick as oil. “And now, so have you. I gave your grandfather the opportunity to win his freedom—and he lost. Maybe you’d like to see if you can succeed where he couldn’t—to play a game with me—and try to save his soul?” He chuckled. “That is, if you’ve got the guts to face me.”

Yuugi felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, slowly sliding forward, beckoned by the abrupt and infinite fall. “A…game? What do I have to do?”

The spirit slid closer. Yuugi caught a faint glimmer of his twisted smile, a pair of volcanic eyes. “Just follow directions—and hope that your grandfather’s heart is really as pure as you think.”

A crack split the air, and Sugoruko crumpled to the floor.

“W-where am I?” He coughed, rubbing his eyes. “What—Yuugi!”

Yuugi rushed to his side. “Grandpa! Are you okay?”

“Yuugi—what are you doing? You shouldn’t be here! It’s dangerous!”

“But I’m here to save you…”

He shook his head. “Yuugi, you should not have come here…”

Seth sighed. “As _touching_ as this reunion is, shouldn’t we proceed with the trial?” His voice boiled with avarice.

“Trial…I thought it was a game?”

“Games can come in many forms. We will play a shadow game—a game of the heart!”

“I don’t understand.”

He chuckled. “You will. Priestess and Sorcerer—bring in the scale.”

They were joined by two stiff and somber-faced spirits—a man and a woman—bearing a large golden scale between them. Yuugi struggled to keep himself from dissolving under the weight of their scrutiny.

“Now, stranger—what do you know about the afterlife?”

Yuugi shuddered. “I don’t know—I don’t think I know anything…”

“ _Anything_ ,” the spirit huffed. “Then….allow me to enlighten you.”

All that had been Yuugi was suddenly lost. The contents of his soul were stripped from his body. Every hope, fear, even his most soft and tender secrets—were ripped out of his bones, sheared off his skin, boiled out of his blood—leaving him scarcely more than a shadow.

Yuugi clutched his chest, biting back tears as the most searing emptiness he had ever felt pounded inside him where his heart had once been.

“W-what’s happening?” Yuugi chocked on the silence and sadness that was welling up in his stomach. “Why does it hurt so much?”

The spirit leered down at him. “The heart is the bearer of all of life’s actions—each misdeed, every impure thought or action—adds to its weight. In order to judge the virtue of your soul, we must judge the weight of your heart!” He grinned. “You’re going to have to hold out better than that—if your heart’s really in this game, heh.”

The spirit stepped aside, and Yuugi could see that his side of the scale was dripping with blood. His own heart—still raw and red—was quivering on the plate.

“I will judge which one of you is worthy of freedom by weighing your hearts against each other. Whosever’s is lighter can leave. The other will be trapped here—indefinitely.”

The sound of ripping flesh, and Sugoruko groaned as his heart appeared on the opposite side of the scale.

The balance of the scale oscillated wildly for several moments, making the air sticky with the scent of molten metal. Yuugi could feel his stomach lurch and his vision darken and blur—the heart, after all, can only remain outside of the body for so long until serious medical attention is—if not necessary—highly recommended. And yet, he could not look away—not from his heart glistening in the festering darkness, not from the blazing eyes of the manic spirit.

The scale began to steady and they all crept closer—all except the one that the Pharaoh had called Priestess. She remained behind—alone—and when the eyes of all others were fixed on the thick blood and supple flesh of the two captive hearts, she was watching Yuugi.

Yuugi knew that what little was left of his heart would surely shatter if he allowed himself to believe—even for a moment—that his grandpa would be left to wander this dark and desolate place for eternity. But what could he do? The balance of the scales was out of his control.

Or was it? Yuugi tried to recall what the spirit had said: _Each misdeed—every impure thought or action—weighs it down_.

The sides of the scale were levelling out. The spirits’ eyes were growing larger, sharper. Grandpa was almost completely still, turning to stone on the ground. And Yuugi was seeing—breathing—nothing but black. He shut his eyes, let the darkness overtake him, and began to scream.

“You’re nothing but a pathetic loser! You’re nothing compared to me! You—why can’t you act like a normal kid?! Stop wasting time on these stupid things that don’t matter!”

The spirits gawked at him. Yuugi balled his fists tight enough to slice open his palms but didn’t stop screaming.

“You’re never going to fit in with us! No one even likes you—they all wish that you’d just go away! And no one’s ever going to like you! No one—no one’s ever going to understand you! And why—why should they bother?! You’re pathetic and stupid and useless and you’re always going to be alone! Always…no matter what! You’re always going to be…alone…”

Yuugi sank with his side of the scale, chocking on his brittle sobs. His own words were coming to skewer him, hungering to burn him alive. And the more he spoke the stronger they became and they were feeding off each other and feeding off him and tearing him apart until he was hollow and hopeless and black.

“No one else is like this! Why can’t you just be _normal_?! You’re so weak—so worthless! Why can’t you just fit in with everyone else?! Why is it so hard for you to _just belong_?! No one else makes it so hard! This is all your fault! Just be like them. Don’t act like such a baby. You’re—you’re such a disappointment…”

His heart hit the floor.

A familiar warm liquid surged through his chest; the old weight returned. Yuugi gasped, savoring the air that rushed into his lungs, the blood, the supple warmth of his soul. He had given up trying to keep from crying, but he savored the tears now, too—proof that he was—remarkably—still alive.

He knelt at grandpa’s side, shaking his shoulder. “Grandpa…grandpa!”

Sugoruko’s eyes fluttered open. He groaned and kneaded the ache in his chest. “Yuugi—what happened?”

“Your grandson won you your freedom—and made himself my prisoner. Priest, return him.”

There was a blast of light and sound. The scale vanished and—just as Yuugi was reaching to embrace him—grandpa disappeared as well.

“G-grandpa!” Yuugi screamed, clawing at the vacant air. “W-where did he go? What did you do to him?” He turned to the spirits—trying to make his eyes flash crimson and lightning.

“I’ve returned him to the presence of his companion. I was under the impression that that was what you wanted.”

“It is, but…” Yuugi clutched his knees to his chest. “You—I-I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. And—and now I’m never going to see him again…Why--how can you be so cruel?”

“Quite easily.”

 Yuugi shivered. “And I’m going to be here…forever?” He looked from face to unfamiliar face, trying not to feel so cold—so alone.

Only the day before he had roamed through a world of puzzles and imagination and color, a world that glistened with precious memories and tender promises of a bright and sunny future. And what did he have now? His future was nothing but a starless night, a never-ending ache.  


“Forever—or until I decide to kill you.” Seth’s grin reminded Yuugi of the point of a knife. “If you value your life, I suggest staying out of my way.”

Mahaad rolled his eyes. “It would do you well not to take anything Seth says too seriously. He speaks entirely in hot air and empty threats.”

Seth glared at him. “You don’t find my threats nearly so empty once you are on the receiving end of one of them…”

“I capitulate to your childish demands only in a desperate attempt to evade your famous tantrums. Only the Gods know the number of headaches I’ve had to endure on your account…”

Mana tapped Yuugi on the shoulder, making him jump. “Whoops—sorry! Just ignore these guys. They’ll never pick on you too hard so long as they have each other to argue with. C’mon—I’ll show you around!”

“Uh—thanks…” Yuugi staggered to his feet and trailed after her down the hall.

“They’re really not so bad once you get to know them. They just like to argue—I guess because there’s nothing else to do. It _does_ get pretty boring around here. But hey, maybe that’ll change now that you’ll here! And at least the Pharaoh didn’t set you on fire. He, uh, likes to do that—a lot.”

Yuugi grimaced. “Yeah, there’s always that…”

Mana halted and spun around, eyes sparkling. “I know—we’ll teach you magic!”

“Wh—magic?”

“Yeah! We can all do magic! Well—” her shoulders slumped slightly. “I’m still learning, but Master Mahaad is a great teacher and he says I’ll be great someday! Here—look!” She flourished her staff with a grin—a grin which fell quickly when a large tiger salamander erupted out of the end and scampered into the shadows.

“Oh! That’s pretty cool.”

Mana sighed and shrugged. “It was supposed to be a _real_ tiger. Ah well—at least it wasn’t another flock of flamingos. Priest Seth _hated_ those. I guess there’s nothing to do but practice more. Not like I don’t have _plenty_ of time to figure it out.” She turned back to him. “That sure was weird what you did back there. I thought for sure that your heart would be lighter—but then you started yelling like that…”

“Yeah, well—”

“Wait!” She leaned closer to him. “What’s that stuff on your face?”

“Wh—”

She dabbed a fingertip against his cheek. “Your eyes are leaking?”

“My—oh!” Yuugi turned away. “I guess I must have been crying…”

Mana wrinkled her nose. “Crying? That means that…you’re sad…right?”

“Well, yeah…” Yuugi gazed up at her cautiously. “Do you….not know what crying is?”

Mana examined the tear glistening on her finger. “I guess I forgot.”

“You don’t remember ever being sad?”

“I don’t think so…”

Yuugi sighed. “Well, you’re not missing much. It’s not very pleasant.”

Mana shrugged. “I guess. But then again—I don’t really remember what it feels like to be happy, either. It’s all kind of—foggy.”

Yuugi frowned. “I still don’t understand—where exactly where am I? And who are you?”

“Oh!” Mana started. “I guess we never did get around to telling you. We’re the Pharaoh’s court—or—what’s left of it anyway. I’m Mana. The guys you met earlier were Master Mahaad and Priest Seth, and Priestess Isis. And the big scary one is the Pharaoh. We, uh, don’t remember what his name is…”

A faint point of light suddenly appeared in the back of Yuugi’s mind, illuminating a distant memory. “The Nameless Pharaoh…the one who lost his memories…”

Mana grinned. “That’s the one! But…how do you know about him?”

“Grandpa told me the story. He came looking for the pharaoh’s puzzle.”

Mana’s lips twisted as a new thought began to turn in her mind. She smiled. It was a little delicate, a little dangerous—but altogether far too perfect and precise to be anything but the absolute truth. “You—you must be the one!” She leapt towards him, eyes and smile sparkling. “You’re here to solve the puzzle! To break the spell! This is amazing!”

“I—I’m not sure…”

“But of course you are!” She twirled and hopped around Yuugi too quickly for him to follow.  Mana moved like a babbling brook—as if her body were rendered in soft summer breezes and shooting stars instead of flesh and bone.  “Just wait till I tell everyone! They’ll be so excited!”

“Uh…” Yuugi blushed. “I’m not even that good at solving puzzles. I’d hate to let anybody down…”

She shook her head. “Nah, don’t worry about it! I might not be as good at magic as the others, but…” She grinned and poked Yuugi on the nose. “I have a good feeling about you. Hey, what’s your name anyway?”

“Yuugi.”

“Well, Yuugi—I know you don’t really want to be here, but I hope—I hope that we can be friends.”

Yuugi smiled. How funny it was that it was in this tragic and dying place that he felt—for the first time—a faint glimmer of something warmer and more alive and more complete than he had ever felt above the ground.

-xxx-

“Once you two have completed your bickering, you may wish to take a moment to consider the significance of what has just transpired before you.”

Seth and Mahaad turned to Isis, mouths hanging open.                 The Pharaoh eyed her sharply. No one could remember the last time they had heard her speak.

“What do you mean, Priestess?”

“Does anyone know how that boy managed to break through our defenses?”

Seth and Mahaad pointed accusing fingers at each other, but Isis closed her eyes and shook her head. “Can none of you recall the series of enchantments we performed to seal off the entrance?”

They furrowed their brows and chewed their lips.

“Something about—”

“—only someone who is pure of heart—“

“—is capable of entering.”

She nodded. “And do you not notice the contradiction: that the heart of the one capable of breaking through our enchantments is judged too dark to earn him his freedom?”

Mahaad’s eyes narrowed. “What are you implying?”

“That he cheated.” Seth huffed.

“Indeed. The boy intentionally weighed down his heart, so that his grandfather might be freed.”

The Pharaoh, who had been scowling into the darkness, turned to her sharply. “Has your necklace given you any insight into this?”

She shook her head, looked away. “I have not dared to consult the Millennium Necklace in several thousands of years. I have had no vision pertaining to this boy—only my own feelings.”

“Do you—”

“—might he be—“

“The one to break the spell?”

The four exchanged a wide-eyed glance, all shivering slightly as a wave of unfamiliar emotion—hope—rushed over them. They glanced down the hall, just in time to hear Yuugi let out a shriek as a trumpeting elephant erupted from the end of Mana’s staff and began to chase him across the chamber.


	5. How Long Must This Go On, Be Our Guest

“That’s impossible.” The Pharaoh turned away and scowled into the darkness.

“But, how else could he have entered?” Mahaad gawked. “It’s the only explanation.”

“No!” he snarled, making the other three recoil slightly as they were stung by the fire on his breath and the rancor burning in his eyes. “He’s—he’s just a little boy.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Just some dumb brat.”

“But—”

“All the evidence suggests—”

“Shut up!” The Pharaoh bellowed. “All of you, listen: that _boy_ —” he pointed down the hall to where Yuugi’s delicate, hesitant laughter could be heard percolating through the darkness. “Is completely _incapable_.”

The Pharaoh shot them all one last, splintering glare then marched out of the chamber, dissolving into darkness.

Seth, Mahaad, and Isis exchanged troubled glances. None of them could remember ever feeling so cold, so helpless. Their world seemed, if possible, a shade more dark and dismal.

“What is he talking about? Of course this boy is the one—the one to break the spell.” Mahaad spoke those final words in a reverent half-whisper. “How else could he have—you do believe that is how he entered?”

“I am most certain.”

“Then that settles it! He must be the one!”

“Then why does the Pharaoh insist that he is not?” Seth drawled. “Surely the Pharaoh is the expert on the matters of his own heart.”

Isis shook her head. “I would not be so sure. The Pharaoh’s heart is still severely damaged. I would not be surprised if its workings are a complete mystery to him.”

“Well, then—how will he ever be capable of loving anyone at all?” Seth spoke the word “love” as if the very sound of it caused something in his mouth to rot.

“If any of us had the answer to that question, the spell would have been broken some time ago.”

Seth flinched as Mana skipped down the hall towards them, merrily brandishing her staff.

“Don’t point that thing at me,” he seethed. “I’d like to go at least one millennia without being turned into a dung beetle.”

Mana ignored him. “Yuugi is the best!” She giggled. “He said that I’m the best magician he’s ever seen. And get this—” She leaned closer and continued in a rushed whisper. “I think he’s the one who’s going to—”

“Break the spell?”

“Hey! You figured it out, too!”

“But the Pharaoh refuses to realize it.”

“Oh,” Mana frowned. “But that’s terrible! How can he not see it?!”

They turned to look down the hall. There certainly was something very different about Yuugi, something they had all long ago forgotten how to define. He seemed to light up dark corners, to make the air feel soft and fresh, like everything was just beginning. He was small, he was young, he was far too fragile to survive in a place like this.

He was alive.

Mana shivered and gazed over her shoulder, to the entry to the Pharaoh’s own chambers—those endless twisted hallways that reeked of despair and loneliness. The others followed her gaze and were struck with the same feeling of being stranded somewhere in the impassable terrain between light and darkness.

“So,” Mahaad spoke slowly. “What can we do?”

“Well,” Mana replied. “It would help if he wasn’t absolutely terrified of you guys.”

“But I’m not frightening,” Mahaad protested. “…Am I?”

“Of course you’re scary to _him_!” Mana pointed an accusing finger at each of them in turn. “Threatened to kill him and his grandfather for no good reason!” Seth shrugged. “Lurks in corners and never talks to anyone!” Isis frowned.  “ _Ripped his heart out!_ ” Mahaad grimaced and sighed. Mana bit her lip and frowned. “Geez, it’s a wonder _I’m_ not afraid of you all…”

“You’re being preposterous,” Seth protested. “Everything I do is in the name of defending the sanctity of the Pharaoh. All of my actions are completely justified.”

Mana scowled at him. “You don’t even know what it’s like to be afraid! You’ve never known!”

“Neither have you.”

“Well…yeah, but _he_ has! He’s so full of all these weird things… _emotions_.” She shivered. “It’s _strange_.”

“I believe that Mana is right,” Isis said. “It is important that Yuugi knows he is safe here.”

“Alright,” Mahaad replied. “I will do all in my power to ensure that Yuugi feels welcome here.”

“As will I.”

“Me too!” Mana chirped.

They all turned to Seth, whose lips remained tightly sealed.

“And you, Priest?”

Seth grit his teeth. “I have no intention of waiting on peasants.”

“You _do_ want the spell to be broken, don’t you?”

Seth maintained a stubborn silence for several moments. “Fine,” he spat. “But I refuse to play servant to this _boy_.”

Mahaad smiled. “That’s a shame. I think it would do you well to learn a little humility.”

“On the contrary,” Seth seethed. “I think it may be the death of me.”

“But, Priest,” Mahaad grinned. “Isn’t that the entire point?”

-xxx-

Yuugi hadn’t been thrilled to be left to wander the halls alone. Without Mana’s sparkling eyes to chase off the darkness and infectious laugher to soften the roaring silence, he struggled against the waves of deep, absolute nothingness that threatened to engulf him.

He thought over what Mana had told him: that the vicious specter who had torn out his heart and tortured his grandfather without the faintest trace of remorse was the storybook hero who had been the beacon of his childhood fantasies, the one figure always able to warm his heart even as all of his classmates had turned cold and menacing and distant. Well, the Pharaoh had certainly touched his heart in more ways than one now, and Yuugi had the residual pain in his chest to prove it. And the clear, bright image of the Pharaoh that he had always carried with him was now cracked and unfamiliar.

But why had the Pharaoh turned so cold? And was he really the one destined to break the curse that had settled upon him? And would he ever be able to see Grandpa again? And was there anything to eat around here, anyway? His stomach had been grumbling for the past twenty minutes…

Yuugi shook his head and bit his lip. Everything was just so confusing….

“Hey, Yuugi!”

Yuugi smiled when he spotted Mana skipping towards him, but winced when he saw the three other spirits trailing behind her.

“Do not be frightened, Yuugi.” Isis approached him. “Master Mahaad, Priest Seth, and I would like to apologize for the impression we made on you. We know you must be struggling to adapt to your new life here, and we would like you to think of us as…friends.”

Yuugi glanced from one face to another. Isis projected an air of highly focused and slightly melancholic serenity, as if the world had long ago ceased to move her. Over her shoulders, Mana beamed, Mahaad smiled nervously, and Seth struggled to keep from gagging.

“I—I think I would like that.” Yuugi smiled, and the pain in his chest receded slightly. It was as if his heart had become lighter. “I would like that very much.”

“Great!” Mana exclaimed. “See, guys, that wasn’t so hard! So Yuugi, what do you want to do first? We could show you the dueling chamber, or you could help me with magic practice! I need someone new to practice my metamorphosis spells on…”

“Well, actually—I was wondering where I could find something to eat?”

Mana furrowed her brows. “Eat?”

“Yeah, I’m feeling kind of hungry…” Yuugi found himself in the center of a circle of bewildered faces. “Do you guys not remember eating either?”

“My memory is vague…” Mahaad murmured. “But I think I may be able to conjure something.”

Yuugi’s eyes widened. “You can make food…with magic?”

“Of course he can—Master is the _best_ sorcerer in all of Egypt. He can do _anything_!”

“Oh, well…” Yuugi smiled shyly. “In that case, I would really love a cheeseburger, please.”

Yuugi’s face fell when he saw the look of complete confusion on Mahaad’s.

“A— _what_?”

“I guess you guys have never heard of cheeseburgers before, have you?”

Mahaad shook his head. “I’m afraid I have not. Why don’t you describe this— _cheeseburger_ —to me, and I will do what I can do to create one.”

“Well, okay…” Yuugi thought back to his lazy, sun-splattered days at the diner across the street from the arcade—the sticky red vinyl seats, the checker-board floor, the chocolate sauce and whipped cream-smothered banana splits that oozed over the edge of their thick glass dishes and made sweet, syrupy puddles on the table. He remembered french fries sizzling in the deep fryer, the sharp scent of freshly-sliced onions. And in all that warm, dazzling chaos sat its warm, supple heart: rivers of elastic impossibly-yellow cheese; a lawn of crisp, cold lettuce that cracked with each fresh bite; a luscious layer of tangy tomato, and a slab of meat so pink and so raw it nearly bled—a hamburger patty that tasted like long summer afternoons, like the heady pounding in his heart when he ran up a flight of stairs or to catch the bus, like nights up late playing video games and watching movies and forgetting that he would ever need to sleep again. But it was much more than just a taste, wasn’t it? It was adventure fuel that stuck to the back of his throat and dribbled down his chin and his wrists until it stained the sleeves of his school jacket. It was the feeling of being full—full with so much more than saturated fats and a thousand more calories than was recommended for a boy of his stature to eat each day. It was fullness that those two flaky buns had never been strong enough to contain—they had been saturated with it and given way in moments. And, allowing himself to bob on the surface of his golden-yellow, buttery memories, Yuugi felt the darkness give way as well.

When he snapped out of his reverie, the spirits were gapping at him in horror.

“And you _eat_ that?!” Mana gawked.

Seth’s face was contorted with disgust. “It sounds foul.”

Isis said nothing, but her face appeared to have turned slightly green.

“Enough!” Mahaad announced, glaring at them. “Yuugi is our guest.” He turned to Yuugi and tried to smile and swallow his mounting nausea at the same time. “So of course we will accommodate his culinary preferences, even if they may strike us as slightly…unusual.”

Seth gagged loudly behind him.

“Now,” Mahaad continued. “First thing to address: this chamber is in no condition to serve as a dining room.” He cleared his throat, clapped his hands, and the room seemed to snap to attention. The piles of dust and rubble in the corners straightened and swept themselves away, the cobwebs were cleared, and a long dining table sprung up with enough force to fling Yuugi off his feet.

“I’m sorry,” Mahaad spoke slowly, as if he were trying out each word for the first time. “Have I…hurt you?”

“Oh, no! It’s fine.” Yuugi laughed as he scrambled into the chair that had appeared behind him. “I was just surprised. I’m never going to get used to this magic thing.”

Mahaad gave him a small smile. “If you’re impressed by a simple table—” He rolled back his shoulders, puffed out his chest, closed his eyes. Everything in the room seemed to stand up straighter, to quicken its heartbeat, to hold its breath.

Yuugi gasped as the ground began to rattle. The air became dry, static, even the darkness seemed to flicker. This was the feeling that had drawn Yuugi here: the feeling that something strange and wonderful was about to happen. It was as if the world had begun to spin in the opposite direction and the shape and sense of everything had suddenly changed. It was magic.

Mahaad’s arm shot into the air and a bolt of golden lightening collided with his fist. The entire chamber erupted into a dazzling array of fiery sparks with a bang that made Yuugi’s ears buzz. When the light had faded and the smoke had cleared, the table was set with a fine silk tablecloth, a flickering oil lamp, and—poised in the center of a shimmering gold platter—a perfectly-prepared, golden brown grilled cheese sandwich.

“Wow! That was amazing!” Yuugi exclaimed.

“Hn, all spectacle and no substance, as usual,” Seth drawled, pointing at the table. “This is not what the boy described.”

“What do you mean?” Mahaad bent to examine the sandwich. “It has cheese, isn’t that the principal component?” He turned to Yuugi for confirmation, frowning slightly.

“It’s fine—really!” Yuugi began biting off hefty mouthfuls of the sandwich. “Don’t worry, this is—” he began to chew more slowly and stopped to turn the sandwich over in his hands. “This is really good, actually. _Really_ good.”

Mahaad inclined his head, beaming. “Thank you. It requires many years of training in order to create food.”

Seth scoffed. “And how many does it take to do it _correctly_?”

 “I am not familiar with the finer mechanics of the—cheeseburger.” His voice hardened. The vein in his forehead was becoming prominent again. “But, Priest, are you really in any place to criticize? Your magic has never delivered anything but pain and suffering.”

“And I’ve always been completely successful at it.”

Hunger abated slightly, Yuugi’s eyes wandered to Isis’ necklace, Mahaad’s pendant, Seth’s scepter. The Millennium Items—or what remained of them. “What kind of magic _do_ you do?”

Seth replied with a thin, dark smile. “The kind that would put you off your appetite.” Yuugi remembered the blistering, carnal grin with which Seth had greeted him when he fell into the palace and decided that for the time being it was probably best not to inquire any further.

Yuugi froze when he felt of pair of eyes drilling into the side of his face. He turned, cautiously, to see Mana staring at him, expression rapt in wonder.

“Do it again!”

“Sorry—do what?”

Mana smiled one tooth at a time. She licked her lips. “You know—eat it!”

“Oh, uh…” Yuugi blushed and took another slow, deliberate bite. Mana hung off every machination of his jaw, sighed as the slurry of melted cheese and butter was smeared across his lips. After he had swallowed she leaned forward and whispered “ _Wow_!”

“Do you, uh, want some?” Yuugi held half the sandwich out to her, but she shied away, looking at her feet.

“Oh no, I couldn’t! I just…wanted to watch, that’s all.”

“Take some, really. I don’t mind.”

“No, I—” Mana sighed and hugged her chest. “I couldn’t. I can’t even touch it—look.” Mana reached for the sandwich, but just as her fingers were about to wrap around the soft, flaky crust—her hand passed through it entirely and fell with a dejected flop to her side. “You see? This is a part of your world. We can’t touch anything that comes from there.” Mana frowned, and her eyes began to sting. Was this what crying felt like? Mana wasn’t sure, but she certainly didn’t like it. “We’re not like you, Yuugi.”

“Oh…” Yuugi focused on the gooey melted cheese dripping onto his plate, the way it swam in the lamplight. Seth had said that his magic would quell Yuugi’s appetite, but the feeling painted on Mana’s face—a feeling that jarred and jabbed at her with the piercing intensity of something never before experienced—had long ago been ground to dust in Yuugi’s heart, and it affected him far more than even the blackest of magic ever could. “I’m sorry.”

Mana shook her head and smiled with her lips (a faint, empty gesture that was a smile in name only). “No. Don’t be. I mean, it’s nothing to be sad about, right? It’s not like I can remember it, it just feels like—” she scrunched her eyes shut.

“Like you’re missing out on something important?”

Mana’s eyes brightened slightly. “Yeah, maybe that’s it.”

“You still don’t understand why we are here, do you?” When Isis spoke the center of gravity in the room seemed to shift.

“No, not really. I mean, I heard the story about the battle, and the Pharaoh having to destroy the puzzle to save the kingdom, but—” he felt so small next to the spirits standing beside him, and so incredibly young. “I don’t really understand what’s going on.”

Isis stepped towards him. “Come, and we will enlighten you. I believe it is important that you understand.”

-xxx-

The deeper they descended into the ancient tomb, the darker, older, and quieter everything became. After walking down the hall for ten minutes, Yuugi began to have trouble remembering what it was like to stand in the sun. After fifteen, the fact that he could not remember no longer bothered him.

“In your stories, the Millennium Items were a source of wonder.” Isis sighed. She was unaccustomed to talking at length, and her voice was beginning to tire. “But the reality is much more complex than that.”

“And more horrible,” Mana added.

Isis nodded. “And more horrible, yes. You see, the Millennium Items were delivered to us by one of the Pharaoh’s most trusted advisers, and we were told that we should use them to preserve peace and prosperity in Egypt. But there were things about the Millennium Items that we did not know, and those things—” her breath caught, her eyes became large and watery. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I have not recalled these memories in quite some time.”

“Oh, uh, it’s okay…” Yuugi said. But Isis shut her eyes and shook her head, unable to continue.

“They changed us.” Mahaad continued. “They brought us great power, but that power came with a price—one that we did not comprehend until it was too late. We were so consumed with our newfound gifts that we no longer cared for others—we cared about nothing but the preservation of our own power.” He sighed. “And we went to great lengths to maintain it.”

They paused and Mahaad clapped—illuminating the chamber. The walls of the room were lined with perhaps hundreds—maybe thousands—of intricately-carved stone tablets—each twice as tall as Yuugi and bearing the shape of a ferocious-looking creature.

“But there was a war.” Mahaad’s voice was rigid and cold. None of the spirits could bear to look at one another, their eyes wandered around the room—unfocused, unseeing. “And we had to make a choice—to let ourselves be destroyed, or to resort to the greatest form of cruelty that has ever been unleashed on this earth.”

Yuugi wandered down the hall, eyes widening at the edge of each claw and tip of each fang of these fearsome looking monsters. Monsters that, strangely, looked somewhat familiar…

“But in reality, it was no choice at all,” Mahaad continued. “In the end we lost both the battle and ourselves, and now we’re here…”

“Neither alive nor dead, with nowhere to go.” Seth tried to mirror the barbarous grin on the nearest monster, but it looked false and shallow on his face. “With nothing to live for, nothing to feel, and nothing to keep us company but a chamber full of tortured souls.”

Yuugi frowned. “What do you mean? These are just Duel Monsters…”

Seth’s laughter was as cold and empty as the tomb that encased them. “Yuugi, these are human souls. The souls of people that I captured and killed so that we could use their spirits as weapons against their own friends and family.” He leered closer to Yuugi, eyes sharp with malice. “Do you know what it does to a person’s soul to commit an act as heinous as that?”

Yuugi trembled and tried to look away. “No…”

“Well,” Seth huffed. “It looks a lot like _me_.” He laughed again and it sounded like being stabbed. “So, do you still want to be _friends_?”

Yuugi gazed at the figures surrounding him. Every surface seemed to ache, every face seemed to cry out with an unvoiced wish—for air, for sunlight, for days full of hope and nights with no nightmares.

“In my world,” he said. “We play games with these. And we call them Duel Monsters. My grandpa taught me how to duel, and he taught me that the only way to succeed as a duelist is to treat every monster in your deck with kindness and respect. He said the same is true of people, too.” Yuugi stopped, suddenly aware that he was being watched (years of impromptu sessions as a human punching bag had given him a sixth sense about these things). He turned, but the only thing he could see at the end of the hall was a dark, twisted hallway. Yuugi shook his head and blinked several times, but the feeling that something—some _one_ —was watching him remained.

“Hey, um, what’s down there?” Yuugi asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. Staring down that doorway felt like locking eyes with death.

“That leads to the Pharaoh’s chambers,” Mana replied. She leaned closer and began to speak softly, as if afraid of disrupting the silence. “We were all affected differently by the magic of the Millennium Items—I never had one, so they didn’t hurt me quite as much as the others. But the Pharaoh got the worst of it.” She sighed, and a ripple of sadness stole across the surface of her voice. “I think we used to be friends, but…he’s just gone now. He lost so much; he doesn’t remember who he is anymore… I wouldn’t go down there,” she continued, brushing at her eyes, which were beginning to sting again.

Mana rejoined Isis at the other end of the chamber, leaving Yuugi to gaze into that doorway to the deepest and most miserable shade of black he had ever seen. He felt as if he were standing on a receding bank, moments from being swallowed up by a wave of dark, icy water. It was a strange feeling—contemplating being swept away by something that he couldn’t control or understand. And yet, Yuugi didn’t fear it. There was something in that darkness that was familiar to him. He leaned into the feeling, gently reached through it, and felt his heart flutter when, for the briefest—sharpest—of moments, he felt someone reaching back.


	6. Gaston, Reprise

Two thousand, five hundred and fifty-one days. Seventeen thousand, one hundred and four hours juggling stacks of algebra problems, drowning under piles of history and classic literature, scribbling down notes and pretending not to fall asleep in class.

Yuugi had never been a standout student, but he hadn’t missed a single one. His academic record may have left much to be desired, but his attendance had always been impeccable.

Until now.

Kaiba scowled from his seat in the back of the classroom, resting his chin on his tightly clasped hands.

Four days ago Yuugi Muto had handed him his first defeat, then dropped off the face of the planet with no warning—not even a whisper of explanation.

On the surface, his life hadn’t radically changed. Kaiba continued to rise before the sun each morning, to roll his eyes at the monotony of his classes and brutish stupidity of his classmates during the day, and to pound himself into a chiseled trebuchet of a president-CEO at his Kaiba Corp office each night. Kaiba’s mind worked with the same rigid rationality of a Swiss watch, and for the first day following his defeat he had barreled on, riding on momentum alone. But as the days had worn on it was not difficult to see that Kaiba’s mind wanted winding. His eyes were wider—glassy—as if he had forgotten the mechanics of blinking. He moved erratically, couldn’t speak without grinding his teeth.

He had spent the last four nights thrashing in his bed, unable to close his eyes without the painful memories of his defeat playing out again before him—each time in more monstrous and horrific proportions. He had poured over his deck, devoted one of Kaiba Corp’s supercomputers to deconstructing every one of his and Yuugi’s possible strategies. He had made himself feverish and dizzy running in these circles, had pulled himself taunt to the point of shattering.

And Yuugi didn’t even have the nerve to show his face—couldn’t be bothered to come to class and witness what this defeat was _doing_ to him.

Kaiba seethed and slouched deeper into his chair. His mind was bubbling acid. His stomach stung with a hunger that no amount of food would ever be able to quell.

He was starving for _revenge_ , salivating for a _fight_.

It was ultimately that hunger that drove him out of his seat and under the suspicious gaze of Anzu Mazaki.

She hadn’t wanted to talk to him—but who ever did?

-xxx-

“I don’t know what happened to Yuugi…” Anzu frowned, eyes slightly dimmed. “Maybe he’s sick.” She narrowed her eyes at him, crossed her arms. “What do you want with Yuugi, anyway?”

“Nothing. I was merely—hoping that I would have another opportunity to duel him.” He didn’t try to giggle anymore.

“Hm…” Anzu’s posture relaxed slightly. “I hope he’s okay…have you tried calling his grandfather? He’s probably back from his trip to Egypt by now.”

Kaiba’s eye twitched. “Of course. That sounds like a great idea.” He turned to go back to his seat, mind already spinning with strategies to coerce Yuugi into a rematch, when Anzu reached for—but didn’t quite touch—his arm.

“Do you—maybe I should come with you. I’m really concerned about him…” Her mouth twisted and her eyes turned hard. She glared at Honda and Jounouchi sitting against the wall, cackling as they rifled through a stack of magazines. “This is all your fault, you know!” She growled at them. “You could never just leave him alone! Yuugi would have been fine if _you two_ hadn’t gone and chased him out of school!”

“Hey, it wasn’t us!” Honda protested. “We’re Yuugi’s _friends_.”

“Hmpf! Some friends you are! Yuugi hasn’t been to school all week and what are you doing—goofing off? You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“But—” Jounouchi countered, “We were always just trying to help! If Yuugi can’t handle high school, do you think he’ll even stand a chance in the real world? We’re helping him grow up!” He turned to Honda, brow furrowed, and continued in a nervous undertone. “We _are_ helping, right?”

Anzu scowled. “It’s people like you who make the real world so hard.” Her expression darkened. “No one _forces_ you to be so cruel. That’s something you decided to do all on your own.” She turned back to Kaiba, face set and eyes blazing. “After school—we’ll go to Yuugi’s grandpa and find him.”

-xxx-

Kaiba returned to find the game shop much how he had last left it—the table and chairs were still upturned, a few cards still scattered on the floor. He kneeled down to examine one—Change of Heart— _but where was Yuugi_?

“Mr. Muto?” Anzu called as she peered through the darkened store. “Yuugi? Is anyone here?”

She stopped suddenly, and they heard a muffled sob from the back of the store.

“Hello…? Please, oh, please—”

“Mr. Muto?” Anzu rushed forward. “Where are you?” Kaiba trailed stiffly behind her.

“I’m—I’m h-here…”

Sugoroku was slumped behind the counter, cradling his head in his hands and rocking slowly from side to side. “P-please!” He stammered. “D-don’t! Don’t take him! Don’t hurt him!”

“Hurt who, Mr. Muto?” Anzu asked, kneeling at his side. “We’re not going to hurt anyone.” She tried to touch his shoulder, but he flinched away, curled into a tighter ball.

“Yuugi!” He sobbed. “All alone! In that _darkness_!”

Anzu bit her lip and glanced up at Kaiba—whose expression remained stony.

“Mr. Muto,” she began slowly. “What happened? Where is Yuugi? He hasn’t been in school—we’re concerned about him…”

At the soothing tone of her voice, Sugoroku seemed to calm slightly. He slowly pried his fingers apart and opened his eyes—though he didn’t seemed to see them.

“Yuugi is in the darkness,” he moaned, voice close to breaking. “And the horror! The infinite death that no mortal should be forced to endure!”

“Tch. This man is hysterical.” Kaiba snorted. “You won’t be able to get any useful information out of him.”

“He needs _help_.”

“He _needs_ to be locked up.”

“Locked up…” Sugoroku repeated. “Locked up forever…underground…in the darkest heart of Egypt….”

“Yuugi…is in Egypt?” Anzu asked.

Sugoroku nodded frantically. Kaiba rolled his eyes.

“Locked in a cage of evil and hate…” Sugoroku murmured, voice dripping with agony. He shut his eyes and began to sob. “Yuugi! No! Shouldn’t have—gone down there—sacrificed himself—for me! Yuugi—Yuugi come back!”

“It’s okay, Mr. Muto! We want Yuugi to come back, too. If you could just tell us what happened…”

“Fat chance of that happening.”

Anzu glared at him. “Kaiba—you want to find Yuugi, don’t you?!”

At the sound of Kaiba’s name, Sugoroku’s sobs suddenly ceased. He opened his eyes again, and this time his vision was unclouded.

“Why…” he murmured, breathing deeply. “You’re…Anzu Mazaki. I—I haven’t seen you since you were a little girl! And Kaiba…Yuugi told me about you! He was so excited that he had finally found someone to play his games with…”

Anzu smiled softly. “Yeah, it has been a while. Mr. Muto, please, can you tell us what happened to Yuugi?”

Sugoroku’s face drew tight. The shadows around him seemed to grow longer and more severe—as if by recounting his time in the Pharaoh’s tomb the darkness of that place was encroaching upon him once again.

“Something incredibly horrible happened…” His voice sank with every word. “I was trapped underground, in a land far removed from light—and life.” He coughed. “It—it was the most horrible place I have ever been—an endless cavern of despair.” He hung his head. Even in the dim light Anzu could see that his face was streaked with tears and his lips were trembling. “I always told Yuugi stories of the great Pharaoh, who ruled his kingdom with kindness and compassion. But the man I met there, if I could even call him a man, was nothing like I expected…”

“Tch. What is he blathering on about?” Kaiba seethed. He could feel the irritation mounting in his blood. All this talk wasn’t getting him any closer to Yuugi.

“I could never imagine that one being could be so cruel,” Sugoroku continued. “Heartless is not a strong enough word. He was— _demonic_. More of a nightmare than a human being.” Sugoroku shivered. “I don’t know how long I was trapped down there, but…I remember Yuugi’s voice—and it was like I was feeling hope for the first time…” Sugoroku closed his eyes, shook his head slowly. “Yuugi sacrificed his soul to save mine—And now he will remain in that place of darkness—forever…”

Mr. Muto…” Anzu searched his face, the game shop, desperate for anything she could hold on to that would restore some semblance of normalcy to the nightmare that had descended upon them. “Are you saying that Yuugi is…gone?”

Sugoroku cast his eyes around the shop, remembering everything that Yuugi had touched, every game board and puzzle piece that he had so tenderly treasured. Even in the darkness the room seemed to glow with him. “I’m afraid that Yuugi is now trapped in a world that is far beyond my ability to reach.”

“I don’t buy it.”

Sugoruko nodded at him. “I wouldn’t expect you to. The world of magic is beyond the comprehension of most people.”

“Magic. Right.” Kaiba rolled his eyes. “I’m getting out of here. This has been nothing but a waste of my time.”

Anzu chased after him as he left the game shop.

“Kaiba! Wait—please! Mr. Muto needs our help!”

Kaiba, already half-way to his car—a sleek black limousine that seemed to slice through the air around it—replied over his shoulder. “That man’s nothing but a raving lunatic. He has no idea where Yuugi is.” He huffed, stiffened his back, and clapped. “Mokuba!”

Anzu heard a car door slam, and a small boy with a thick mass of long, black hair scampered over from the far side of the car, rushed to Kaiba’s side, and bowed.

“The door.”

“Yes—nii-sama!”

“Kaiba—that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t need our help.”

Kaiba smirked as he climbed into the back of his limousine. “I agree—that fool needs all the help he can get. But it’s not my responsibility to provide it.”

The car door slammed in her face before Anzu had a chance to respond.

-xxx-

“How did it go, nii-sama?” Mokuba chirped. He leaned forward in his seat, fists clenched and eyes sharp and hungry. “Did you find Yuugi and—” He punched the air in front of him. “Show him what he gets for messing with you!”

“No,” Kaiba growled, scowling. “Yuugi Muto seems to have disappeared. The only one in that game shop was his babbling old grandfather.” He dug his fingers into his palms until they left red marks.

“Well—you’re gonna find him!”

Kaiba nodded, but the lines of his face remained tense and bitter.

“And beat him!” Mokuba added. He collapsed back slightly in his seat when his brother didn’t reply. “Nii-sama…?”

Kaiba began to chuckle in a way that Mokuba would have found unsettling if he hadn’t heard it so many times before. Kaiba had adopted their step-father’s laughter—a low, callous rumble that burned on contact. Mokuba could have sworn that the night had suddenly fallen several shades darker, so that the only lights he could see were the silver daggers in his brother’s eyes.

“Oh, Yuugi Muto will not _live_ to regret the day he dared challenge me!” Kaiba’s hands twisted. His fingers were itching for destruction. “He will not escape me again! But—” Kaiba cut himself off, stared at his shaking fist.

“What is it, nii-sama?”

Kaiba shook his head and bit down on this tongue until he tasted blood. “I don’t understand, Mokuba. Yuugi Muto is just a pathetic nobody. But—when I was dueling him—” Kaiba recoiled at the memory, the fiery waves of shock and shame that still wracked him. “It was like he had a reserve of inner strength. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced…” Kaiba grimaced, tried to the shake the feelings away. _Feelings_. He had been having far too many of those lately. Far too many sleepless nights, too many nightmares that left him breathless and shaking.

“But, nii-sama—you’re the strongest person and best duelist in the world! No one is better than you!”

“I _know_.”

“You’ll get him!” Mokuba was all greedy eyes and teeth and fingers. His blood simmered at the thought of Yuugi Muto, the source of all his brother’s distress and indignation. “You’ll get him the same way you get everyone who tries to get in your way!”

Kaiba stared out the window. “But—how. When I can’t even find him. Hmph.” For all the courage Yuugi had demonstrated during their duel, he was now proving to be as big of a coward as ever. He must be holed up in a cave somewhere, cowering in fear at the thought of what Kaiba would do to him the next time their paths crossed…

The thought made Kaiba smile. Slightly.

But what could draw him out of hiding? Kaiba turned the puzzle over in his mind. Surely there had to be a way to get the pieces to fit, there must be something Yuugi loved enough to make him swallow his cowardice…

Or some _one_.

Kaiba’s mind raced back to the game shop. Yuugi’s grandfather slumped on the floor, ranting and raving about ancient Egyptian sorcery like some kind of lunatic. Surely it wasn’t safe to leave a diminutive high school boy in the care of someone who was clearly so mentally unsound…

But the way Yuugi had cherished that Blue Eyes White Dragon card, how he had clasped it so tight between his chubby fingers, how he had crumpled and cried when Kaiba had ripped it in two. And he hadn’t been crying for the lost card, had he? He had cried for the loss of what the card had represented…his grandfather. The sudden realization hit Kaiba with a wave of nausea. How sentimental. How revolting. How _weak_.

Kaiba’s imagination burst with light and color as the mystery began to slide together. Everything made sense now.

This was something he could _exploit_.

Kaiba’s eyes flickered over to Mokuba, who was practically sizzling in his seat. “You’ve thought of something,” he hissed. “I can tell.”

Kaiba smirked. “I think I know how I can catch Yuugi Muto after all,” he replied, voice slick and cool.

Mokuba rubbed his hands together, fast enough to catch fire. “Oh, it’s good, huh?”

Kaiba closed his eyes briefly, and his nightmares of the past four nights sprung to life before him. Chambers bursting with knives, dead white empty spaces that grew smaller and smaller and tighter and tighter until he could scarcely breathe, darkness and chaos and senseless noise. And he, in the festering center of it all, clenched in the jaws of his Blue Eyes White Dragon, waiting. But this was not Kaiba’s nightmare any longer, to be suffered in solitude and fierce silence. This was something he could _create_. It was no longer a cage, but a game board, a playing field of the most ultimate and total annihilation.

“Yes, Mokuba. I think it will be _perfect_.”


	7. Chapter 7

With no sun and no moon to guide him, time slipped away from Yuugi quickly. Indeed, the underground chamber of the Pharaoh’s tomb seemed not only apart from time, but apart from all else as well. No matter how many times he wandered the halls, he was never able to familiarize himself with the floorplan. The walls were never where he had left them; the end of each chamber seemed to stretch on forever into cold and dismal darkness. Sometimes it seemed to Yuugi that the place was a stranger even to itself.

He enjoyed studying the reliefs on the walls—at least, he enjoyed it as much as anything could be truly enjoyed here. There was something soothing about the way the stories stretched out into the shadows in long, cool lines. They reminded him that this place had once been someone’s home, that to someone these cold, inky chambers had once felt safe, sun-drenched, and warm.

That someone was still here, but to him these walls were now vague and unfamiliar. The stones and archways had grown ancient around him while he remained the same, and what was once his palace and home had grown into his tomb and prison cell—without him having aged a single day.

Yuugi shivered. He hadn’t seen or heard from the Nameless Pharaoh since he had first arrived here, but…

The wind moved strangely here. Yuugi could hear pacing in the silence. Every shadow ended on a sharp, jagged edge. And, when Yuugi gazed up into the vacant eyes of the hieroglyph figures on the walls, he could swear that he was being watched.

-xxx-

No words shaped his thoughts.

He thought in sweeping black waves, felt in a storm of raging red chaos, in freshly lit embers and dying smoke.

Without words to buffer them, each thought consumed him completely, turning the landscape of his mind into a charred and broken wasteland.

Sometimes he could walk that land, vaguely aware that he was standing in twilight and ruins, gazing at the ghost of who he could sense he had once been. During those rare moments of lucidity he wanted to tear up the ground, to unearth whatever might be buried there—any clue, any shred of proof he could discover that he had once been alive. But he would always find that the ground was solid rock—totally impenetrable—and he was left cowering on the ground squeezing dirt between his fingers.

There were other times—looming, immense moments, when he would wander in the dark—floating in an alternate dimension with no ground and no sky. When these moments came they were the only thing that had ever been, and they diminished him so completely that he didn’t know that he should have felt lost and frightened.

It wasn’t just himself that he had forgotten. Mahad, Seth, Isis, and Mana swam like specters around him, no more alive than the carvings on the wall. When he couldn’t see them they ceased to exist.

Yuugi was the only one who he always knew.

Yuugi floated above the surface of the gloom, lighter and softer than sunlight. His every movement around the palace sent ripples through every surface, made the air skip.

It was almost enough to make him wish he could remember what it had been like to have skin that could be touched, how it had felt to have a heart that could race and breath that could catch.

The Pharaoh seethed as he paced his chamber. He glowered at the walls. He hated the way they were carved with a language that he couldn’t read, how they told a story that he couldn’t recall. He hated how the world had become increasingly dim until there was nothing left of it but tattered shadow and fog, how everything that he had once known had contorted into a twisted and dismal mystery that taunted him with his own inability to understand it.

He hated how, no matter how hard he might try to destroy them, he could not even touch the walls that imprisoned him.

The bursts of hope that Yuugi brought were so fragile, so easily devoured.

The Pharaoh growled and clawed at the darkness. Its grip around him tightened, threatening to obliterate him—as if he had not been thoroughly obliterated already.

-xxx-

On the other side of the wall, Yuugi was suddenly seized by fear.

He must have wandered too far. He had been carried away by the tale embossed on the wall alongside him, and now, at the end of the story, there was nowhere to go but through a dark and silent doorway he had never seen before, into a chamber that seemed to Yuugi as immense and vacant as a black hole.

He shivered, rubbed his arms and shoulders, but could still feel cold seeping into his blood.

“M-mana?” He whispered. “Priestess? Master Mahad? Is—an-anyone there?”

He couldn’t hear himself speak—the nothingness around him was too immense.

Yuugi wanted to run, to cry, to disappear. For not the first time since he had been trapped here, Yuugi wished that he could open his eyes and find himself safe in his bed back in Domino, with his quilt tucked up under his chin and sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window.

But Yuugi knew that he wasn’t dreaming. The ground under his feet was too hard for this to be a dream, the cold was too bitter and intense.

And Yuugi knew that he wouldn’t run. He knew because, lingering on the threshold of this strange doorway to the underworld, he sensed a fear with which he was intimately familiar.

It was the type of sweaty-palmed and shame-faced fear that had eaten away at Yuugi a little each day in school—every time he ate lunch by himself in the cafeteria, every time he was the only one in the class without a partner, each time he opened his mouth to speak and no one turned to listen—the fear that he would be alone and small and misunderstood for the rest of his life…

…So what then, Yuugi wondered, was it like to be afraid of being alone for all of eternity?

His voice shook. “P-pharaoh? Are you in there?”

There was no reply. Yuugi swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and entered the chamber that no light and no happiness had touched in over a thousand years.

He promptly fell on the ceiling.

-xxx-

It took Yuugi’s eyes several moments to adjust to the darkness, and once they did he was certain that he _must_ be dreaming after all. Surely the chamber that he had stumbled into could only exist in nightmares.

There was no up or down, only endless staircases and doorways leading down darkened halls, running directly into walls, or vanishing completely.

“Ph-pharaoh…?” Yuugi asked again. “Are you in here? I thought—that I could feel you…”

Yuugi shook his head. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Pharaoh was lost somewhere in here. It would be so easy to take a wrong turn and simply wander forever in murky, unyielding darkness…

Yuugi froze, then turned around slowly. He had only taken three steps. He had counted. And yet, the door through which he had entered was gone—or at least, Yuugi had no way of identifying it. It had slammed shut behind him and was now indistinguishable from the thousand others that lined the walls and sprung up from the floor and sank into the ceiling.

Yuugi gulped. He had thought himself a prisoner before, but now he was truly trapped.

“Well,” Yuugi sighed, chuckling softly to himself, “I guess there’s nothing to do but keep looking.” His laughter did little to keep him warm, or to assuage his nagging fear that he would in fact die in this strange and unforgiving chamber.

But Yuugi took a deep breath—took a step forward—thinking of all the times in the past he had been afraid to take that fateful first step, all the times he had been afraid to raise his voice, and wondered—now, after so many years of fear and isolation and doubt—did he really have anything to lose?

-xxx-

Yuugi continued to count the step as he walked. By the fifteenth he could no longer tell whether he had been wandering the chamber for minutes or hours or days. On the thirty-second he forgot the sensation of gravity—he seemed to float through the darkness from one door to the next, pulling at the handle and falling deeper into this inside-out and inverted world. As he counted fifty-six he could no longer remember how or why he had entered this chamber in the first place. And what was he counting for, anyway? He couldn’t recall, so he stopped.

Yuugi chocked back a sob. Here, swimming in darkness, light and air and life were unimaginable feelings—they were behind a wall and up over a distant hill. If he focused his attention, Yuugi could remember sunsets on the beach and soft picnics in the park. He could recall blurs of birthday parties and slabs of chocolate cake—so sweet they made his teeth ache. He bundled up all his memories of everything he had once loved and had thought would last forever and burned them like a match. All his innocent sun-streaked days that had somehow dimmed and slipped out of his grasp—too fast for him to realize what he was losing until they were already far away. They had dropped one by one, and no matter how meticulously he tried to count and cradle them they all ran together now in one dark blur—just like the footsteps that had taken him here.

-xxx-

Somewhere, from a very great distance, the Pharaoh heard someone crying. And from somewhere else, even farther away, something told him that the sound meant that someone was suffering.

-xxx-

Yuugi continued to open doors, to wander aimlessly in the devastating darkness. He stumbled over the feet that he could no longer feel, struggled to keep his eyes open (though the world around him was indistinguishable either way). His hands hung limply off his wrists. He felt as if a weight have been placed at the center of his chest, and it took every fragment of energy he could muster to keep his heart and lungs from collapsing.

He had to sit down, he had to rest, to breathe, to see light.

By now, Yuugi had largely forgotten that the chamber even existed. He thought not about doors and staircases, but locks on memories and steep drops down into wells of thick, dark emotion. He wasn’t Yuugi anymore--he was the stifled sobs that he would lock deep in his chest until he knew that no one could hear him, he was the pain that built up behind his eyes when he tried so hard to keep from crying in front of everyone at school, he was the long dark wave that picked him up at night and carried him away, drowning his every bright and hopeful thought. He was misplaced anger and doubt and self-reproach that jabbed at his chest and stung like a wound that would never, ever heal. And he was small and soft and fragile in a world built of iron spikes that ran straight through his heart.

And after a time, he wasn’t even that.

 

He collapsed, first onto his knees and then onto his stomach, clutching at the floor that had been waiting to devour him. His tears fell readily, and here, in this complete and utter desolation, Yuugi for the first time wasn’t afraid to cry for all the things and all the people that he had lost, for all the light that he would never see and all the air that he would never touch. He had once thought of the world as a bright, open pasture—an endless future yearning to be explored. And now, now it was all compressed into a small black box that was nothing, nothing at all…

Yuugi closed his eyes, blew out his match, and became smoke.

-xxx-

Yuugi awoke to the sensation of being gently rocked, as if he were drifting across the sea.

The light in the room surrounding him was dim, but compared to the utter darkness he was accustomed to even this was nearly blinding. Yuugi had to squint and shade his eyes as he slowly, cautiously opened them.

This room had a certain softness to it—the walls did not encroach, the air felt clear and cool. It reminded Yuugi of the early morning, when the world was still dewy and quiet—just beginning to wake up.

And someone was definitely watching him.

Standing in the corner was a figure with sharp features, large, dark eyes, and a furious crown of hair that reminded Yuugi of wildfire. Even from across the room Yuugi could feel the boldness in his stance, the way he had of commanding the attention of every gust of wind and streak of shadow. He had a sharp, towering type of confidence that emanated out like sunlight.

When he noticed that Yuugi was awake he nodded and gave him a small frown.

“You are the Nameless Pharaoh…aren’t you?”

The man hesitated a moment. “I believe so, yes.”

“What happened to me?” Yuugi gulped. “Am I…dead?”

A smile as faint as fading smoke passed across his lips, and for a moment Yuugi could see the young boy—he couldn’t even be older than Yuugi himself—behind the thousands of years of darkness and solitude. “Most definitely not.”

“Oh, uh, that’s good.” Yuugi shifted nervously. “So, where are we—if you don’t mind me asking?”

The Pharaoh turned away from him. “I don’t mind your asking, though I’m not sure that I’ll be able to explain.” He paused. “This is as safe a place as any that you’ll find here.”

“Oh…” With every passing moment Yuugi could feel the life rush back into him. The jaws of panic that had griped him now loose, Yuugi felt relaxed enough to take in more of his surroundings. Without the shadow magic at his sides, the Pharaoh no longer seemed as immense and menacing. Yuugi watched the tremors in his face, the way that not even his regal bearing could hide the intense melancholy in his sunset-red eyes and tightly drawn lips.

“What…what happened to me?” Yuugi repeated.

The Pharaoh shrugged. “Only the same fate that has befallen countless others before you.” He turned to Yuugi. “I think you are the first one who has managed to survive it.” When Yuugi continued to gaze up at him in confusion, he continued. “This portion of the palace was built for my protection, it is enchanted with very dark and powerful magic. It is by no means easy to overcome.”

“I felt like I was dying…”

The Pharaoh nodded. “That was the intended effect.”

The Pharaoh continued to stare at Yuugi until Yuugi began to blush and looked away. “But I don’t feel that way anymore…”

The Pharaoh nodded, and gave Yuugi the same smoky whisper of a smile. “I don’t think you’ll feel that way here. My memories are vague and—incomplete—but I know that this place is my refuge. It is the one place in this hellhole that—” He paused, struggling to find the words. “It’s the one place that seems familiar.”

“I like it here.” Yuugi replied. “If I were you I would stay here all the time…”

“I would too, only—you’ve probably noticed that the palace moves in mysterious ways.”

Yuugi nodded. “It’s like the walls never really stay in the same place.”

“Yes….sometimes I have trouble finding this place. In fact, I was beginning to think that I had lost it forever, until…until you arrived here.”

“Oh, uh, good.” Yuugi felt as if his ability to form words had suddenly melted. Under the Pharaoh’s unflinching gaze all else seemed to float gently away.

“Thank you.”

They remained silent for several moments. For Yuugi it was a relief just to be able to feel the passing of time again, to know that he was sitting and breathing and alive.

“Yuugi.” There was something about the way the Pharaoh said his name that made Yuugi’s insides rush. It was if the all other sounds had suddenly lost their volume and vibrancy—his name on this man’s lips was the only sound that would live forever. “Why did you come here?”

Yuugi stared at his hands. “I was looking for my grandfather. He always goes on a lot of trips for his archaeological work, and I try not to worry about him, but Professor Hopkins came back and said that he was in trouble and Grandpa  was lost and he didn’t know where to find him and—” Yuugi gulped. “Well, there were other things going on, too—but I just felt like I had to find him. He’s my only friend and—and I don’t know what I would do if he was gone…”

The Pharaoh gave him a level expression. “Why did you come _here_.”

“You mean—”

“Yes. This is my part of the palace. No one is supposed to enter here. No one is supposed to be able to _survive_ it.” For a moment Yuugi thought that the Pharaoh looked angry, but his expression softened to something that Yuugi thought closer to wonder. “How did you do it?”

“I—Well, I didn’t mean to, really,” Yuugi mumbled. “I was walking through the halls, and, I got lost and I came to this doorway and I just kind of _felt_ something, like…someone was sad, and needed help.”

The Pharaoh raised his brows, crossed his arms, and didn’t reply.

“I guess,” Yuugi continued, “It reminded me of myself.” He raised his eyes till he was gazing fully at the Pharaoh’s face. “I thought that maybe I could help you.” He shrugged. “I guess it was a stupid idea, though. I’m not even very good at helping myself…”

“You—believe you can help me?” The Pharaoh’s voice was dark and skeptical, but Yuugi could sense something underneath it, some kind of frantic hope that was too fragile to come fully to the surface.

“I don’t know, honestly.” Yuugi sighed. “Everyone thinks that I’m the one who’s destined to save you, but…that seems like a scary idea to me. But I’m here, and I think I understand what you’re going through, maybe just a little bit anyway, and I guess I’d like to see what I can do.”

Yuugi smiled, and when the Pharaoh smiled back briefly—hesitantly, as if smiles were a thing that he was touching for the first time—it was the first time that Yuugi could remember not being afraid to introduce himself to a stranger.


	8. Chapter 8

“So, I’ve been thinking something,” Yuugi wrinkled his brow and pursed his lips. “No one can remember the floorplan of the palace, and…” he stole a nervous glance at the Pharaoh. “This place here, your chamber—it seems to be the most confusing.” Yuugi paced in small circles, the wheels of his mind turning like a clock, snapping into place with mechanical precision. “Do you think, maybe, that that’s not just a coincidence? You see, I think that maybe there’s a connection between how you think and how the walls of this chamber move.” He began to speak faster and his voice gushed and bubbled. “What you told me about that one other chamber made me think of it. You said that place feels the most familiar to you, that it’s the one place that gives you hope, and when you’re feeling hopeful it easier to find it, right?”

The Pharaoh frowned at him. “I’m not sure that I follow.”

“Well, you never said _exactly_ that, but I think it makes sense. The point is, these rooms change to reflect your mood. When you’re feeling afraid or confused or angry, the rooms get jumbled up. When you feel, uh, a little happier, you can find that other room, and things stay stable for longer.”

The Pharaoh shook his head. “I’m sorry Yuugi, I—” The bold lines of his face dulled slightly. His shoulders sagged. “These things—anger, happiness—I don’t understand.”

Yuugi winced and rushed to the Pharaoh’s side. “Oh, you’re right. I-I’m sorry.” He reached for the Pharaoh’s wrist, and let out a small dejected sigh when his hand sailed straight through it. “Let’s try something else—do you remember anything that happened in your life at all?”

The Pharaoh’s eyes flashed with something that Yuugi couldn’t easily place. It seemed to be the culmination of several feelings at once—feelings that raced around and ate each other.

“No.”

“What about—right now? What are you feeling right now?”

A crease formed between the Pharaoh’s eyebrows. He glanced at Yuugi, and his gaze deepened into a stare that made Yuugi blush and fidget. In all his years—as few as they might have been compared to the Pharaoh’s several thousand—he could not recall ever being regarded with so much tender reverence. The Pharaoh seemed to see something in Yuugi that extended far beyond his meager mortal flesh, something that could breathe and blossom only in the space between the two people who nurtured it together.

But the moment did not last long. The Pharaoh scowled and shook his head. His eyes were suddenly sunken and dark. “I don’t _know_ ,” he muttered, voice burning.

“Maybe, uh—”

“I don’t know, Yuugi.” The Pharaoh repeated, his voice becoming sharp and crimson. The floor of the chamber began to rattle. In the distance Yuugi could hear something shatter. “I don’t know anything.” Blocks were falling from the ceiling. The darkness was rushing in to meet them, the ceiling preparing to pounce, the walls beginning to shrivel and crack. Yuugi could feel his head slipping underwater. It felt as if his heart and lungs were made of iron, and he was being dragged to the bottom of a bleak, ravenous oblivion.

“Wait, please stop!” Yuugi gasped. “This is exactly what I’m talking about!” He shouted over the sounds of the heaving earth. “You’re doing this—right now! Because you’re sad and confused and upset!”

Yuugi kneeled over, clutching his chest and struggling to catch his breath. The shaking in the chamber had stopped, and the Pharaoh was glaring at him with a kind of enraptured, desperate curiosity. Light slowly began to seep back into the room, to catch in the Pharaoh’s eyes. When he spoke again, his voice wavered slightly. “Are you sure?”

Yuugi nodded, smiling. He almost laughed. “Yeah!” He sprung to his feet. “I know it’s probably a little hard to understand these things, if you don’t remember.” He stared at his feet. “I’m sorry. But just because you don’t remember the names for a lot of your feelings doesn’t mean that they’re gone. I think,” he hesitated for a moment, “well, my guess is, your memories are stored in these rooms somewhere, but you don’t know how to find all of them. But maybe, if we worked together, we could make a map of it or something, and then that would help bring your memories back!”

“Yuugi…” The Pharaoh’s sigh bruised Yuugi’s heart blue and black. “I’ve spent an eternity trying to find my way among these walls, but the only place I’ve gotten is _more lost_.” His expression was so distant, stiff, and cold that Yuugi felt as if he were conversing with a statute.

“But, you were alone before.” He whispered. “It won’t be like that anymore. I’ll help you.”

The Pharaoh sighed and crossed his arms. “Yuugi, you may be powerful—but.” He closed his eyes and dug his toes into the floor. “This power is too vast—even for you.” His voice trembled, and fell like rain. “The darkness that encases me is too great.” He drew his cloak up around his shoulders, spun on his heel, and evaporated into shadow.

-xxx-

“I just don’t understand,” Yuugi sighed, twisting a glob of spaghetti around his fork. “He seems to _want_ help, but then he just doesn’t seem to trust me…”

“It isn’t you that he does not trust, Yuugi.” Isis spoke from the far end of the table.

Yuugi looked up from his dinner. “What do you mean?”

“We have all borne the scars of our imprisonment—and the memories of our misdeeds—in different ways. To say that the Pharaoh lost his memories is only half the truth—he may have intentionally hidden them from himself.”

“And trapped us in here with him, to rot for all eternity?” Seth huffed. “How _generous_ of him.”

Isis pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. “And perhaps the Pharaoh is not the only one who has disguised some part of himself, in order to evade the guilt that consumed him. Are there perhaps memories that you are reluctant to recall, Priest Seth?”

“Hardly,” Seth spat.

“But Yuugi, what can you do then?” Mana asked. “There must be something you can do to help him!”

“I don’t know…” Yuugi folded his hands on the table. “The Pharaoh is right—I can’t survive in there on my own for long. And, well, I doubt that he can either. It’s—” he paused, trying to swallow down the unpleasant memories that tasted like bile at the back of his throat. “Not easy. I don’t think I’m strong enough to fight the dark magic in there for an extended period of time. I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t found me…” He stared at his hands and slowly traced the intricate grain of the fine wood table. “I’m too weak to do it on my own, but,” he raised his eyes slowly, first meeting Mana’s, then cautiously extending his gaze to the others in the room. “I was hoping you guys would help me. I think, if we all worked together, and you used your magic, there might be a way to find out how those rooms work, and find where the Pharaoh’s memories are hiding.”

Mana shivered slightly and hugged her shoulders. Mahaad stared at his feet. No one seemed able to look at him directly.

“That’s a very good idea, Yuugi—”

“The problem is—”

“I don’t want to go in there!” Mana cried. “I tried once, I really did. It was a long time ago but I still remember—I wanted to help him, just like you did, Yuugi. But—but—” she squeezed her eyes shut and balled his fists. “I took one step in and then all I could hear was screaming! And I saw blood, so much blood. It was—it was the worst thing I’d ever seen and it made me—it made me so—” she paused, then spoke the final word slowly, with a kind of slow and heavy trepidation. “ _Afraid_. I was so frightened, Yuugi. I couldn’t—I couldn’t do anything! I felt so—small. As if nothing I could do would ever make a difference, as if the whole world was going to sweep me away—I-I don’t think I can face that again.” Her breath caught, and she couldn’t continue speaking.

“I’m sorry,” Yuugi murmured. “I know that must be hard. But—but I think it’s the only way.”

-xxx-

No one spoke until they were hovering on the threshold of the Pharaoh’s chamber, each standing slightly further away from the entryway than the person beside them.

Mana squinted and teetered on her toes, craning her neck to see as far she could into the cavernous gloom. “I can’t see to the other side,” she whispered, voice wobbling.

“I’m not sure if there really is another side.” Yuugi replied. “But that’s something we need to find out.”

Mana nodded, though her eyes were still wide and watery.

Yuugi took a cautious step forward, then hesitated. It didn’t take much to feel the effect that this room had on him—had on them all. Each step closer to the entryway made him feel that much smaller and easier to destroy. Yuugi could feel himself turning invisible in the face of the immense shadows that swarmed around him. He gulped, took as deep a breath as he could manage, and gently laid one foot down on the other side of the threshold.

Yuugi could feel Mana gasp at his side. “Be careful, Yuugi!” She cried, straining to reach for his arm. “It’s so dark in there…”

“It’s okay, Mana.” Yuugi forced himself to smile, gritting his teeth as he could feel his blood beginning to freeze. “I’ll be right here, just on the other side.”

“But it’s not _just_ the other side,” Mana cried. “It’s a whole other dimension of…something awful.”

Yuugi nodded. “I know. But remember who you’re doing this for. It’s not just for the Pharaoh, it’s for all of us.” He stole one final glance at the band of spirits. Not that long ago they had been impossibly frightening—all fangs and spears and harsh, angry words. Now, watching them exchange nervous glances, seeing the first flickers of something resembling hope in their eyes, Yuugi wondered how that could have ever been. He smiled again—genuinely this time—and the immense cold around him began to thaw. “It’s okay, guys. We’re all doing this together.”

Mana began to shiver the instant Yuugi disappeared into the darkness.  She hopped from foot to foot, clutching her chest. “Oh, Yuugi!” She cried. “It’s so dark in there…”

“It’s alright, Mana,” Mahaad stepped forward, struggling to keep his voice and his face firm. “Use your staff and make a light. I’m sure you’ll be able to find him.”

Mana nodded. “Right, that’s a good idea, Master!” A small point of light appeared at the end of Mana’s staff. She reached out, gently extending her arm into the darkness. The light vanished instantly.

“Oh no…” Mana stared at the extinguished end of her staff. “C’mon!” She cried, shaking it. “You’re not supposed to do that! Master, why—” Mahaad’s troubled expression immediately silenced her.

“The magic we are about to face is immense indeed.” Mahaad’s hand gravitated to the pendent hanging from his neck. His face was unnaturally pale, his eyes wide. There was a small tremor in his jaw.

“And Yuugi’s in there all by himself…” Mana balled her fists and stamped her foot. It felt as if her heart was being wrenched apart, as if her body was dissolving in acid. And she, Mana thought, was barely human—she had eons of dull dark days spent underground shielding her from whatever sinister spell had been placed upon this chamber. All her feelings came to her through a filter that made them distant and small. But Yuugi had no such protection. He was battling back the waves of scalding misery completely unassisted, with only the mysterious magic of his own heart to defend him. And these currents of despair, which drifted across Mana like ripples, must be hitting Yuugi with the full force of a tidal wave.

Mana threw down her staff. “I’m doing it. I’m going in there!” She turned to face them, and her eyes burned so brightly that even Seth flinched slightly. “I-I’m so tired of living underground, of forgetting everything that I used to know…everyone that I used to care about. We all used to be friends once, didn’t we? Before all this magic and darkness got in the way…I miss those days. I miss doing things together, and helping each other.” She threw back her shoulders and stuck out her chin. “Yuugi’s been hurting more than any of us because he’s the only one who still remembers how, but I’m not going to let him suffer alone. Not anymore. Yuugi’s been such a good friend to me. I want to be brave like him, and if that means that I’m going to have to go in there and be scared, well then…” she gulped, but the stony determination in her face didn’t falter. “That’s what I’m going to do! Magic or not! Because—because I want to remember, even for just a little while…what it’s like to be human…” She searched their faces and, finding nothing there to dissuade her, turned and marched into the darkness.

“Well…”

“…That was…”

“Quite impressive.” Isis’ fingers strayed to her necklace. “And I believe she is correct.” She sighed. “Why else would we be here, after all these years…”

“I was under the impression that we were made to suffer for all eternity.” Seth drawled.

Isis nodded. “We have been punished, and I believe that we may yet have more to endure. But what use would an eternal punishment be, one that offered no opportunity for rehabilitation or learning?”

“And what makes you so sure that we _deserve_ to be rehabilitated? The gods have no reason to offer us redemption—as far as they’re concerned we might as well continue to suffer until the ends of the earth,” Seth sneered.

Isis shook her head, and her fingers tightened around the symbol on her neck. “It was through us that the Millennium Items wrought their incredible destruction and misery. I believe that we are the only ones who are equipped to bring that suffering to an end now. And perhaps Yuugi was brought to us not only to break the spell that seals the Pharaoh’s heart, but to heal ours as well—so that we might make amends for all that we have done.”

Seth snorted, but Isis did not seem to notice. Her eyes were fixed on something beyond the blackness that swallowed the hall.

“I’m going to follow them.” Her eyes shot to Seth and Mahaad. “And I expect that you will as well.”

She, too, drifted into the darkness, leaving behind only the memory of her piercing eyes and billowing cloak.

“Well, it looks as though it’s just you and I now, Priest.”

Seth scowled. “Funny. I would have thought that you’d be the first to make some sort of imprudent personal sacrifice—grotesquely heroic with absolutely no chance of success…”

“Yes…” Mahaad murmured, “That is what you would expect, isn’t it? I would gladly give my life to defend the Pharaoh, and yet, the prospect of reliving my own death fills me with a kind of—” He frowned and shook his head. “Something that I cannot fully articulate, perhaps something that I cannot fully comprehend. However,” he voice steadied, adopted a bit more of the somber, sanctimonious tone that Seth found both infuriating and strangely…comforting. “There is no doubt in my mind that this is something I must do—the final duty that I must perform.” His words seemed to glow in the gloom. He turned to Seth. “I do hope that you agree with me.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “And since when has my approval been of any meaning to you?”

Mahaad smiled. “Well, Priest, you never gave me much of a choice in the matter. You can be quite dictatorial, you know. In fact, I would wager that you could match the Pharaoh himself on that count.”

Seth smirked. “Well, someone has to maintain order around here…”

Mahaad nodded. “Indeed. In fact, there have been times when I was quite convinced—well, perhaps not entirely but—I thought—I would have lost my mind to the darkness much sooner if—if you had not been here.” He smiled shyly, then turned away and coughed. “I’ll think you quite an abominable coward if you don’t follow me, and I will never cease to ridicule you for it.”

Seth scowled into the darkness, the only thing he now had to keep him company. He brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his cape, twisted the Millennium Scepter in his hands. He glared at the eye embellished on its top.

“This is all your fault, you know,” he muttered, then erupted in a laugh so bitter and callous that even Seto Kaiba would have been impressed. “And now,” he scoffed. “The Gods have come to collect their debt…” Face carved into a perfect glower, Seth stepped into the darkness and abandoned the only form of life that he could still remember.

-xxx-

Have you ever tried to imagine a new color, to give a name to a sound or a sensation that no one on earth has ever experienced? If so, then you will understand—at least to some extent—the difficulty that the common people of Egypt faced when trying to articulate the unfathomable horror that the dark magic of the Millennium Items wrought upon their world. There were simply no words to describe the way in which they stripped life from the earth, the way they chained up hope and love and happiness and locked them where not even the Gods could find them. Those years of war are largely forgotten by our history books for the simple reason that no historian has ever been able to fully understand or articulate them.

And now, with no more than one small step, Seth was plunged back directly into the raging heart of the battle.

He could feel blood caked to the insides of his nostrils, sticking to the bottoms of his feet, streaming over the soil. He could smell it burning the air, staining it copper and iron. For two weeks the Nile had flowed foul with it, and the fish had suffocated and rotted on the riverbanks.

And yet, Seth preferred the blood to the wide, vacant eyes and dull, cold bodies of those who had lost their souls to him. There had been a muted horror in watching them die—they didn’t flame or explode like those who lost their lives in battle—they simply dissolved and disappeared, leaving behind an empty shell that not even the jackals would touch.

He wandered through the pungent haze, trembling slightly at the knees, the back of his throat beginning to burn. He could never have imagined a world breaking so completely, a silence so unintelligible and loud that it made his ears throb. Such a cramped and stifling darkness. He had never known his own skin to be so heavy, his own thoughts to be so agonizing and brutal. He had no memory of this kind of pain—an ache that permeated down to the chambers of his heart. Seth growled. He had forgotten how much strength it took to breathe. Each breath tore into him like a scream.

Seth had always cherished the immense power that erupted from the end of the Millennium Specter. He had basked in its infernal light. He had fed and cherished it, fostered it like a parasite, and dreamed there was no force on Earth that was more powerful or sublime.

His footsteps turned to heavy staggers. It no longer made any difference whether his eyes were open or closed—the images of shattered faces and fetid corpses preyed on him just the same. Every surface he touched seemed to recoil and scream. Shadows pooled at his ankles and bound them to the floor like heavy iron weights.

And he had been wrong, hadn’t he? Seth could see that now. For all the power and the glamor that the Specter possessed, all it brought was death, destruction, and suffering. The Specter’s magic was too dead, too hatefully dispassionate. And it could not serve him now, it could not mend the gashes in this world, it could not rebuild…

Seth collapsed onto his knees, shaken by a wave of revulsion that cut him into ribbons.

There was just enough light in the room that he could see her, but he wished that there had been less. He wished that her face and her body had been broken more, so that he might not have been able to recognize her in the rubble, so that he could not still gaze upon her face and remember the life and the beauty that had once bloomed there. Her life was still so close that he could nearly grasp it, as if it were a thin mist that floated just out of his reach. It should have been so easy to call it back. He had the power to riddle souls with a thousand holes but where—who had the magic to sew them back together again?

A few weeks prior he would have laughed at such a thought, but now it was all he could feel, shaking him by the shoulders and welling up like an icy bruise inside his chest. He had never felt so heavy, had never felt that the passing of each moment was such a small and sacred thing. He could hear only the faint gray silence where her voice should have been. It was if he had been cut in half, sliced straight down the middle, and some part of himself had ended with her.

And this, was this were true power resided? The thought surged through him—it was clear, focused, and sharp and it chased the gloom back—if only for a moment. The hatred and the violence that he had wielded, surely that power was nothing compared to Kisara’s effervescent light, to the force that propelled her heartbeat and that made her smile so sweet and so pure. It was the same power, surely—the same strange magic which none of them could understand—that had brought Yuugi to their doorstep, that made him so fragile and so strong while they were merely shadows on the wall and whispers in the night.

Seth reached out a hand, tentative and shaking, to try and touch her cheek, unaware, until that moment, how wildly his heart was beating. There had been nothing inside him but clouds of smoke and ash for as long as he could remember, but now? Now he was made of pillars of ivory light, rivers of blood, meadows of muscle and flesh. He strained his arm to reach for her. But just as life could no longer touch her—neither, it seemed, could he. His hand vanished into her skin, and Seth had never felt absence as such as heavy blow.

He continued to reach for her, and that was how Mahaad found him, huddled in the dark, whimpering her name.

-xxx-

“Is everyone here?” Yuugi quickly counted four haggard faces and sighed. “I know it must have been hard for you guys to get here. Thank you.”

Mana shivered. “It was _so dark_ …”

Mahaad closed his eyes and winced. “The horrors that I was forced to relive—memories that I had long ago wished to put behind me…”

Isis was slowly rocking back and forth, scarcely seeing them.

Yuugi sighed. “I know. I’m sorry you had to experience that—”

“Why?!” Seth cried, jumping to his feet. “Why could I not touch her?!” He glared at Yuugi, a helpless despair burning in his eyes that frightened Yuugi much more than any other expression he had ever seen the spirit wear.

“I’m sorry,” Yuugi twisted his hands together, and his voice sunk into the floor. “I wish I could explain how it works, but I don’t understand it either.” He shrugged. “All I know about this place is that it has the power to access people’s memories and emotions. Right now it only shows us the bad ones, but I think if we worked together we could find them all, and then you would all be free—of everything.” He gave them a small smile. “It’s worth a try, anyway.”

Seth stared through him. “So what do you intend we do.”

“Well, uh…” Yuugi rubbed his temple. “When I was here before I noticed how hard it is to keep track of what rooms you’ve visited already, so I thought a good place to start would be to mark all the doors. That way we won’t keep wandering around in circles at least…”

“Do you think we can?” Mana asked. “My power doesn’t work here, and if this place really is a mirror of the Pharaoh’s soul—maybe we can’t change anything…”

“Uh, well, maybe—”

Yuugi stopped to look on in horror as Seth strode over to the nearest door, raised the Millennium Specter, and—in a blaze of raging fire and light—blasted a hole straight through the middle of it that was large enough for Yuugi to walk through.

“My power seems to work,” he announced, rolling back his shoulders and thrusting out his chin. “Let’s start here.”

-xxx-

As he watched them work, it occurred to Yuugi that he had never seen the sun rise. His nights had been too often swallowed up by school assignments, his days too busy juggling classes and games and searching out scraps of companionship to give him much time to think about how one transitioned into the other. But watching the spirits scamper from one chamber to the next, he saw that subtle change—that gradual diminishing of darkness, the gentle encroachment of hope—writ large on each of their faces. With each room that Seth lit up and Isis, Mahaad, and Mana added to their map, their voices became a little lighter, their smiles—once so bitter and scathing—became soft. It was as if a great black weight had hung over the sky and within each of their hearts for centuries—but a small trickle of light had swelled into a sparkling river, and one at a time it was picking them up, carrying them to a foreign shore, and washing the years of hopelessness and despair away.

With each unlocked door they found it easier to breathe. Mana laughed into the shadows, shocked that they had once had the power to frighten her. They found it easier to see. Priestess Isis no longer clutched her cloak tight around her shoulders, as if afraid that the darkness might consume her. Their voices shimmered in the semidarkness. Their cautious smiles were flutters of light that made the entire palace glow.

 “Hey, this is actually kind of fun, isn’t it?” Mana asked him. She pointed to where Seth and Mahaad were pouring over the map. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the two of them get along for more than five minutes. Maybe, not even before the war…” She scrunched her brow. “It’s still all really hazy, but it doesn’t seem so long ago anymore…” She grinned down at Yuugi. “It’s a nice change.”

Yuugi nodded. “I’m glad, Mana.”

“Yuugi, what is going on here, why are all of you—”

Yuugi and Mana turned to see the Pharaoh standing behind them, still half-obscured in shadow, with thick lines etched into his brow. “You are all here.”

Mana nodded and beamed. “That’s right!”

“But—how?”

Yuugi and Mana shared a smile. “We all came together,” she laughed. “That dark magic of yours really isn’t that bad when you’ve got five people working on it!”

The Pharoah looked just barely too bewildered to smile. “I—I’m glad.” His eyes flickered over to where Isis, Mahaad, and Seth were talking quietly in a corner. “But what exactly are you doing?”

Yuugi stepped forward, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, I had this thought that this chamber was kind of like one giant puzzle, and if we could see how all the puzzle pieces fit together, maybe we could find your memories.”

The Pharaoh drew up his shoulders and raised an eyebrow. “Well, has it been working?”

“I think that’s something only _you_ can say for sure, but—” Yuugi extended his hands, and he watched as the Pharaoh took in the new light in the room, slowly savored the freshness in the air. “It seems better in here than it was before. It doesn’t feel as sad.” He grinned. “This place _is_ like a giant puzzle. The biggest and most amazing puzzle I’ve ever seen!”

Yuugi’s grin widened when the saw the faintest echo of a smile play across the Pharaoh’s lips. There was something in that softest of gestures that made him feel as if he were soaring.

“Yuugi! And—Pharaoh!” Mahaad bowed quickly. “We’ve found something that may be of interest to you.” He held out his hand and showed them a small square piece of gold. “We’ve found several of these, we believe they may be a part of—”

“The Millennium Pendant.” The Pharaoh plucked the piece of gold from Mahaad’s palm. His eyes grew wide, and for a moment he did nothing but turn the gold over in his hands and watch it shimmer in the dim light. “I believed that this object was gone.” He sighed. “How many pieces have you found?”

Mahaad reached into his pocket and showed them a small handful of gold pieces. “They are scattered all across the different chambers, hiding in the shadows. “

“May I see one?” Yuugi took another piece from Mahaad’s hand and examined it closely. There was something about the thick, straight edges of the pieces, their sharp even corners, that made him feel as if he were revisiting a familiar melody. “I have a puzzle just like this one,” Yuugi murmured, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a small wooden block—the same one that Honda and Jounouchi had tried to hide from him. “It’s a type of interlocking puzzle. The pieces make a very complex three-dimensional shape when they’re assembled correctly. And they’re supposed to be very hard to take apart—I wonder how you did it…”

The Pharaoh frowned. “That is a puzzle even to me. But Yuugi—” His voice became strangely fragile—as soft and sweet as the sunrise itself. “Do you think that you could help me rebuild it?”

Yuugi blushed and fidgeted. “I’ve never been able to solve one so big before, but—” His eyes alighted on the faces of his companions. They were all watching him, scarcely breathing, hanging off the edges of his words. “I’ll try my hardest—I promise.”

-xxx-

Yuugi frowned at the small pile of gold pieces. He almost reached for a piece several times—always drawing back at the last possible moment. Yuugi bit his lip, and his eyes flickered upward to the meet the Pharaoh’s. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I guess I’m just kind of nervous…”

The Pharaoh chuckled. “Don’t worry about that, Yuugi. And take comfort in this thought: the Pendant cannot possibly be more broken than it is already.”

“Heh, I supposed that’s true…” Yuugi tangled a hand up in his hair, and cautiously picked a pair of pieces up off the floor. He ran his fingers along their surface, quietly memorizing their edges. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine them locking together. He lost himself in a vision of an emanating network of golden puzzle pieces—each fitting in perfectly with one another, each finally safe and settled in its proper place, locked in an eternal embrace with the neighbors and friends that were perfectly designed to accept its every odd corner. He nearly jumped when the Pharaoh began to speak again.

“It was very brave of you to come back here, Yuugi. I don’t know many who would have had the heart to face me again.”

“Oh, it was nothing, really.”

“Yuugi, it was very far from nothing.” He smiled faintly. “Everything that you have done since arriving here has defied my expectations. I suppose it’s about time that I stopped being surprised.”

“I was just trying to help my grandpa.”

“I know what you did, Yuugi. You would have won my shadow game, and yet you chose to remain here.” He peered into Yuugi’s eyes with an earnestness that made Yuugi’s chest swell.

Yuugi shrugged. “Well I like I said, I just thinking about grandpa.”

“And so you willingly sacrificed your soul to the darkness. That was incredibly brave of you.”

“No—it’s not like that! I’m not brave, I’m not anything like that. You—you don’t know the full story. Yeah, I was trying to help grandpa—I wanted him to be free. But that’s only part of it.” Yuugi took a deep, shuddering breath. “I—I don’t really get along with most of the kids I know at school. I don’t like it there. And so a part of me, I think—a part of me wanted to run away. Grandpa is the only friend I’ve ever had—I think I’d rather be down here than up there all alone.” Yuugi swallowed hard. His vision was beginning to burn and blur. “And I really did lose that game. All those things I said in there were the truth. I try not to think about it a lot, but all those things I said are things that I’ve said to myself. I—” he rubbed his eyes, hoping that the Pharaoh could not see how red and swollen they had become. “I’m not good at standing up for myself. Not many people like me. I’m not nearly as confident as you…”

“Yuugi…” The Pharaoh leaned forward and lifted his hand, pausing a moment before trying to place it over Yuugi’s. When his hand melted directly through Yuugi’s skin he turned away and blinked slowly several times before continuing. “Yuugi, I have resided in his chamber for longer than I can remember, and I’ve never been able to do what you’re doing now.” He plucked at one of the puzzle pieces on the ground. “I’ve hidden these things from myself—my one chance of attaining peace and freedom—because I fear what may happen if I should succeed in putting them back together. I locked my own memories away because I have been too afraid to face them.”

“But—why?”

The Pharaoh shrugged. “I have no memory of what happened then, but I know that the Millennium Pendant brought immense darkness and suffering to the world. I think,” he furrowed his brow and frowned, “I believe my memories must be hidden from me for a reason, and I’m not sure that I’m ready to face what that reason might be.”

“Oh…” Yuugi tried to smile, but found it hard to make his face bright when the Pharaoh was so immersed in gloom. “I-I don’t think you should worry about that.”

The Pharaoh turned to him. “But why not?”

“I know that that magic caused a lot of trouble, but I don’t think that that’s all it’s good for. I mean, even right now Priest Seth is using _his_ magic to help you find your memories. I think—maybe if you tried—you could make something good from it.”

The Pharaoh frowned. “And what of me, Yuugi? Can anything good come from me?” The Pharaoh’s eyes clung to his.

Yuugi nodded. “I had always heard that you were a wise and fair Pharaoh, and I think there must be some truth to that story—don’t you?” He laughed softly. “It’s kind of funny, you scared me so much when we first met, but now—now I don’t think we’re all that different, really…I think we’ve both known what it’s like to be lonely for too long.”

“Hm, perhaps that’s true, Yuugi…” The Pharaoh continued to twirl his gold piece between his fingers, but his face had turned dark and stony.

“Here, give that to me,” Yuugi reached for the Pharaoh’s hand. “We’ll do it together.”

Yuugi and the Pharaoh laid their puzzle pieces side-by-side on the ground between them.

Yuugi giggled and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. “I think, maybe…”

The Pharaoh leaned in closer until their foreheads nearly touched (they would have, if Yuugi had been able to touch him.) But while the Pharaoh could not touch Yuugi’s skin, he felt his warm breath stirring the air around him and sending shivers down his back. He could feel Yuugi’s tender grasp on his puzzle piece as if those same fingers were intertwined with his own, cupping his chin, caressing his cheek. He could feel Yuugi’s quickening heartbeat as they inched closer together and he could feel—with a flutter and a start—his own heart racing to keep up. His hands quivered, unable to remain steady in face of the warmth welling up inside him. His breath trembled off his lips and got caught in the space between them, a place where they needed no words, only gentle smiles and shy fingers working together to fit two broken halves back into something whole.

“Wait!” Yuugi exclaimed. “I think…I think we almost have it…!”

With a small final nudge, their pieces locked together. The moment they met, the ground began to shake. Light rattled through every shadow, a low rumble chased away the silence. The spirits gasped as the walls of the nearest room shook and crumbled into rubble and dust.

“W-what just happended?!” Mana gasped. “That room just disappeared!”

Yuugi sprung to his feet. “This is amazing!” He turned to the Pharaoh and beamed, stars dancing in his eyes. “Do you see? With every piece we put together, one of these rooms will disappear. One of your mysteries will be solved…We’ll get that much closer to finding your memories!”

“Yuugi…” The Pharaoh stood slowly, gazing one by one at the shocked faces surrounding him. “I don’t know what to say. I never thought—” He glanced down at Yuugi and found himself unable to look away. Suddenly, the happiness that shone in Yuugi’s face was not something that he could only distantly remember—it was simply there, a faint glimmer waking up inside him. He gazed down into Yuugi’s eyes, marveling at how remarkable it was that his feeling—this sudden burst of dawn—was something that they could share. “Thank you.”

-xxx-

With each passing day, the Millennium Pendant swelled like a golden flower bathing in its first rush of springtime.

Yuugi and the Pharaoh spent hours with their necks craned over their small piles of pieces. Yuugi couldn’t speak without stumbling over his words. And the Pharaoh shivered at each new trembling of his heart. The waves that washed over him, those dark bursts of feeling that had stabbed at him in the night, were gradually becoming gentle and soft. It felt like coming home. They hardly noticed the time pass as they sat side by side, caught up in each other’s smiles.

And with each piece of the puzzle that fell into place, one more wall came down, a new shade of color and light burst through the room and touched them all.

Just outside the chamber, Mana stifled a giggle behind her hand. “It won’t be much longer now, will it?” She whispered to herself, clutching her arm to her chest. “They seem to really like each other…”

Mahaad turned to her from where he had been pouring over his latest additions to the map of the Pharaoh’s chamber. “What are you doing, Mana?” He frowned. “It’s not polite to spy.”

“Aw, come on—how could I not?!” Mana grinned. She leaned further into the doorway. “Just _look_ at them.”

Mahaad wrinkled his nose. “I’d rather not. I prefer to respect my Pharaoh’s desire for privacy—as should you.”

“Master, you’re no fun.”  Mana stuck her tongue out at him but slowly drifted away from the door. “You aren’t even a _little_ curious?”

Mahaad chuckled. “I believe that all will be revealed in due time.”

Mana sat beside him. “But how can you say that—when we’ve already been waiting for so long?” Mana stared at her hands. She could almost feel them again, could almost remember the softness of her skin and the hardness of her bones. It was all so close now, closer than it had ever been. It was if she had spent her whole life trapped underwater, and was now mere moments away from setting foot on shore. How hard it was to hold her breath and furiously keep treading water when all she wanted was to run, to soar, to taste everything that the land had to offer! “I always thought that I wanted to go into the afterlife, but I’m not so sure anymore…” Mana cast a glance back into the chamber, where she could hear Yuugi and Pharaoh whispering and laughing softly together. “It seems like it must be much more fun to be alive, and to feel everything that he feels…”

“Don’t be absurd,” Seth replied, stepping up beside Mahaad. “Returning to humanity would be a pointless diversion. When the puzzle is reassembled our task will be complete—and there will be nowhere else for us to go. Considering any other option is a waste of time.”

Mana frowned. “Do you really believe that? I think I’d like to know what it would be like to be alive again.”

“I’d be honored to tell you,” Seth snapped, “life is pain. Your time in the Pharaoh’s chamber should serve as an adequate remainder.”

“But the Pharaoh is changing!” Mana cried, jumping to her feet. “It doesn’t feel as bad in there anymore! It doesn’t feel as bad anywhere! I don’t think life has to be so cruel—you just _want_ to be miserable forever so that’s the only thing in life that you can see!”

Seth took a sharp step forward that sent Mana scampering down the hall (though she did pause to shoot him a bitter glare over her shoulder.)

Seth shook his head. “That girl’s mind is full of full of delusions.”

Mahaad sighed. He thought that perhaps he was the only one who had noticed the dark circles around the High Priest’s eyes and the thinness of his lips. While Mana was sparkling brighter than ever and even Isis had learned to smile, Seth had only seemed to grow more sour. “My Priest,” he began slowly, “Mana has always been the most optimistic of us all, but I would hardly call her delusional. She is closer to life than any of us, and she more than anyone else has the capacity to bear both its joys and its sorrows.”

Seth scoffed and refused to look at him.

Mahaad bowed his head, made his voice gentle and low. “You never spoke to us of the—great personal loss—that you endured during the war.”

Seth shrugged and scowled. “It is of no consequence.”

“And yet you continue to harbor that pain—”

Seth spun around and glowered at him. “I harbor nothing!”

“Is that so? Is that why you insist on hiding in the darkness, as the rest of us move towards the light?” He narrowed his eyes. “You were suspicious of Yuugi from the moment he arrived here. But can’t you see how much he has changed things?” He took a step closer. “How much he has changed _us_? I thought I was destined to live forever—desolate and alone…” Mahaad balled his fists and clenched his jaw. It was a stance with which Seth was all too familiar—the one Mahaad always adopted in the heat of an argument. But there was something different this time—there was a softness shining in Mahaad’s eyes that made Seth feel as if his heart had been tied up in a knot.

“I thought I would float forever like a ghost,” Mahaad continued, “a stranger to the entire world.” He looked down and swallowed. “I cannot claim to understand why, but with Yuugi’s help another door has been opened up to me, and now that I see it I will not allow that door to close—however painful it may be to walk through it.”

“You know nothing of pain,” Seth hissed.

Mahaad shrugged. “Perhaps that is true. But I know nothing of happiness, either.”

Seth scowled and scoffed. “And since when did you become so sentimental?”

 “I believe that transformation has been a long time in the making.” Mahaad grinned. “Deny it all you like, but I know that you hold the same hope that I do.” He coughed, inclined his head slightly, then continued. “You do not have to bear the burden of the past alone.”

Seth recoiled as if Mahaad had blasted him with fire. “Are you _ill_ , Sorcerer?! Possessed?!” He glared at Mahaad, who only stared at him in astonishment. “No? Then keep your fantasies to yourself!” Without a second glance, Seth stormed off down the hall and into darkness.

The Pharaoh started at the sound of Seth’s angry footsteps. He bit his lip and sighed. “We have all been here for quite a while, haven’t we? I never thought to think about how these years of isolation must have affected all of us.”

“I think it has been hard on them,” Yuugi replied. “It would be hard on anyone—being alone for so long.”

The Pharaoh nodded. “And yet you have given them hope.” He turned to Yuugi suddenly. “Yuugi, do you think you could—show me how? How to…be kind to them—the way you are?”

Yuugi tried to wipe away the heat rising in his cheeks. “I don’t know…I don’t know if I know how. People don’t really look up to me, if that’s what you mean.”

The Pharaoh chuckled. “Well, perhaps not physically—but they are inspired by your spirit, your generosity.” He frowned. “They only fear me.”

“That’s not true! Everyone is really concerned about you and wants to see you get your memories back!”

“So that they might escape from the prison in which I have confined them.” He shook his head. “Yuugi, I appreciate your attempt to—spare my feelings—but the truth is, I cannot heal my heart by remaining in isolation.” He chanced a sidelong glance at Yuugi. “You have helped me see that.”

Yuugi felt as if his heart had melted, and he suddenly saw everything in a haze of lavender and pink. “Well, uh, I didn’t—I mean I wasn’t really trying to, uh, I didn’t think there was anything I could teach _you_ —”

“Yuugi,” The Pharaoh smiled. “I know. That is what makes it all the more remarkable. But tell me, what can I do?”

“Well, uh, we all eat dinner together every day. Well, I mean, _I_ eat—but everyone else seems to enjoy watching? You could—you could join us, if you want.”

The Pharaoh gazed over the threshold, the nodded. “Alright, Yuugi. I think I would like that.”

-xxx-

Sugoroku Motou awoke in a cold sweat. Sweat, because he was forced awake in an unfamiliar room, bound hand and foot to a small metal chair, and was being stared down by a young boy with a thicket of wild black hair and a wide, feral grin. Cold, because a bucket of ice water had just been dumped over his head.

“W-where am I—” Sugoroku stuttered.

“No talking, old man!” Mokuba shouted. “Just shut up and listen: Your stupid grandson upset my brother so we’re going to keep you here until Nii-sama makes him pay.”

“Yuugi? Yuugi would never hurt anyone.”

Mokuba crossed his arms and shot him a suspicious glare. “That’s not what _I_ heard.”

“No, this is nonsense. Just let me go and I’m sure we’ll find that there’s a reasonable explanation—”

“Shut up!” Mokuba’s roar distorted his face into a grotesque mask of rage. “You’re not going anywhere until Nii-sama beats Yuugi in a duel.”

“But what does that have to do with me?”

“All too much, I’m afraid.” Kaiba slipped out of the shadows at the edge of the room, cracking his knuckles. “Yuugi is still too afraid to show his face to me, and since you’re his only friend it’s only a matter of time until he comes rushing to your rescue.”

Sugoroku’s expression darkened and hardened like ice. “Yuugi told me that you were his friend.”

 “Yuugi was under an unfortunate misapprehension.”

“You’re despicable. And keeping me as your captive won’t do any good. Yuugi is being trapped by _dark magic_ —”

Kaiba rolled his eyes. This nonsense again. “Can it, old man. That story won’t do you any good here. You should just tell me where Yuugi is hiding and make this much easier for both us.”

“I have told you. You refuse to believe.”

“Oh, please. You truly expect me to believe that Yuugi has conveniently been spirited away into a world of ancient pharaohs and wizards?”

Sugoroku gave him a grizzled smirk. “My story is far easier to believe than the alternative. Yuugi has faced villains far more dangerous than you. Yuugi is not hiding from you, and he’s not afraid.”

Kaiba raised an eyebrow, stiffened at the shoulders, and sharpened his glare. “I’ll believe that when I see it. In the meantime—” Kaiba snapped his fingers, and the lights in the room suddenly began to swirl. “You do play Duel Monsters, don’t you?” Kaiba leered forward until he was all the whites of eyes and the darkness between his teeth. “Mokuba, leave. I’m going to show this man what a joke he truly his.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something There and Human Again are my two absolutely favorite songs in the musical so I worked extra hard to make this chapter good! :D (Though it got a little darker than I planned…). 
> 
> Totally random note: I re-watched the animated Disney version of Beauty and Beast for inspiration before I started this, and it occurred to me how weird Gaston’s plan to kidnap Belle’s father is. I mean, he never even seems to notice that Belle has just disappeared, and I know that he’s egotistical but you’d think he’d at least want to know where Belle is while he’s concocting this elaborate plan to force her to marry him. They kidnap Maurice from his own home in the middle of the night, and the only way they can get away with that is because Belle isn’t there. So where does Gaston think Belle is in the middle of the night? Why does he not care that she’s suddenly disappeared? I don’t think Seto would let Yuugi’s absence slip by him like that haha


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Tale as old as time / Tune as old as song / Bittersweet and strange / Finding you can change / Learning you were wrong…”  
> (Beauty & The Beast, If I Can’t Love Her Reprise)

“Pharaoh, are you in here?” Yuugi bit his lip. “This place still feels like such a maze sometimes…” He muttered as he continued to pace the Pharaoh’s chamber.

The chamber had undergone a massive change since they had begun their work reassembling the Pharaoh’s shattered Pendant. The whirlpools of darkness had stilled and settled along a soft and gentle shore. The walls had crumbled and come down. And yet, a few odd corners and endless, twisted halls remained.

And it appeared that the Pharaoh had completely disappeared.

“Everyone is waiting for us to come down,” Yuugi called as he turned a corner. “I promise it will be fun—Master Mahaad does such a great job making the dining hall look spectacular and—oh.” Yuugi stumbled over his feet, nearly toppling through the Pharaoh’s back. “There you are,” he sighed, trying to blink back the flurry of stars and comets that suddenly seemed to dance before his eyes. “I was afraid that maybe you had decided not to come…”

The Pharaoh chuckled. “I always keep my word, Yuugi. I was merely making some—ah—final adjustments.”

The Pharaoh turned towards Yuugi and spread his arms slightly, revealing a sweeping violet robe and enough glistening bands and bangles to make it look as though he had been forged in gold. The Millennium Pendant—now nearly completed—dangled just above his heart.

But Yuugi could see nothing but the Pharaoh’s bold, brilliant face, the way his eyes dazzled in the semi-darkness, the smile he gave Yuugi—which began so proud, but melting into something as soft as morning when he noticed the way that Yuugi simply couldn’t look away. Yuugi almost didn’t hear him when he titled his head and asked, “So, how do I look?”

“Oh! Uh—you look, well— _I_ like it…you— _on_ you. I-I mean—how did you—where did this all come from?”

“I can feel my powers beginning to reenter—I suppose you would call it the realm of my _conscious control_.” The Pharaoh’s smile faltered slightly. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

“Why?”

The Pharaoh’s hand moved to rest just above the edge of the Pendant. He didn’t quite touch it. “The Millennium Items granted us all extraordinary powers. But now that I know where those powers _came_ from, and I have seen the spiritual toll that they take—I’m not sure that this revival of my item’s magic isn’t taking me a step _in the wrong direction_ …” He sighed. “I can no longer shield myself in ignorance about the truth of where this power comes from, and its great capacity to cause pain and suffering…Yuugi—why are you smiling like that?”

“I’m smiling at _you_ ,” Yuugi giggled softly as he felt a rush of warmth sweep up to his cheeks. “Just listen to you! You never would have said something so thoughtful when I first met you.”

“Hm—I suppose that’s true. And you, Yuugi, never would have said anything quite so daring.”

“I guess we’re both changing.”

The Pharaoh nodded. “That certainly seems to be the case.”

They stood in the hall a moment longer, lingering in a small pocket of stolen time, sharing one gentle smile. Somewhere in the distance, they heard another wall crumble into dust.

“Well, uh…” Yuugi rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess we better go down and meet everybody.”

The Pharaoh nodded. “Alright. Yuugi, lead the way.”

-xxx-

“There you are!” Mana exclaimed, face lighting up with a shining grin. “We were beginning to think that you two forgot about us! Though,” she caught Yuugi’s eye and winked. “ _I_ certainly couldn’t entirely blame you…”

“Ha—w-what are you implying?”

“Oh, _nothing_ …” Mana tried for an imitation of one of Seth’s self-satisfied smirks but quickly erupted into a fit of giggles. “Oh, never mind. Just come look at all the food Master Mahaad made for you! It looks _amazing_!”

Mana beckoned them towards the dining table, which, in addition to a shimmering silk tablecloth and a long row of jewel-encrusted flickering lamps, was set to the edge of overflowing with dozens of bowls of succulent fruit, platters of roasted meat, baskets of bread—Yuugi didn’t even know the names of everything laid out before him, except for, of course, the plate at his seat of the table.

“Oh wow! This is amazing!” Yuugi beamed at Mahaad—then at what he had created: A sizzling cheeseburger stacked high with crunchy mountains of lettuce, juicy slabs of zesty tomato and pickle, all oozing out oil and tang onto a field of crisp, perfect french fries that emanated out of the center of Yuugi’s plate like rays of starchy, greasy sunlight.

“It’s _beautiful_ ,” Yuugi sighed, slowly rotating his plate so that he could admire Mahaad’s craftsmanship from every possible angle. “But—I can’t possibly eat all of this…”

Mahaad smiled and shrugged. “I know. Consider this spread a representation of the magnitude of my gratitude, for all that you have done for us all.”

“Oh, please. You just wanted to show off.” Seth scoffed from the other end of the table.

Mahaad’s smile became a shade more indulgent. “There may be a small grain of truth to that accusation…”

The Pharaoh chuckled. “Be that as it may, Magician, I for one am quite impressed.” He took a seat at Yuugi’s side. “It feels as though it wasn’t _that long ago_ that I enjoyed some of these dishes myself. It’s strange, to be so close to remembering, and yet…” He shook his head and smiled ruefully. “This one, however,” he eyed Yuugi’s cheeseburger with an uneasy mix of curiosity and suspicion, “is quite unfamiliar.”

Yuugi laughed. “Yeah, everyone was pretty grossed out my first night here.” He cradled the cheeseburger an inch under his nose and took a deep, ravenous breath—allowing the heady scent of beef and cheese to inundate him. He grinned and licked his lips, eyes closed and expression rapt.

The Pharaoh watched him with a small smile. “It appears that I’m missing out on quite the transformative experience.”

“I wish you could taste it, too.”

“Why don’t you tell me how it _makes you feel_ , and I will try to imagine.”

“Well, uh, okay. I guess I can try—” Yuugi’s gaze floated around the table, then settled on the cheeseburger in his hands. “It’s hard to describe, really. I just know that being in that diner always made me feel really happy—and—safe…Grandpa would take me there after school sometimes when I was little, and we always got cheeseburgers and chocolate milkshakes together. But once I started high school we stopped going…I always missed it. I always wanted to go back.” He gave small shrug. “But I never asked him to take me.”  He smiled, but his expression seemed small and far away. Then he took a slow, contemplative bite. “This one tastes just like the ones we used to eat!” He turned to Mahaad, beaming. “Thank you.”

Mahaad nodded.  “It is the least that I could do.”

“It’s really…” Yuugi’s smile was so wide that it threatened to split his face in two. “I don’t know what to say…I haven’t felt this way in a long time.” He paused. “It’s silly but, sometimes I felt that diner was the only place that I could ever be really happy.”

Mana slowly leaned closer to him, “Do you still feel that way, Yuugi?”

“I—“ Yuugi looked at her wide, hopefully eyes. He turned to Isis, Mahaad, Seth, and—finally—the Pharaoh, all gazing at him as if they had known him for an eternity. As if they were the only people left on Earth, and they would remain there—together—even if everything else faded and crumbled away. “No. Now, I think I could be happy anywhere…”

“Well,” Seth replied. “If you can be happy here then I certainly wouldn’t doubt it.”

“Yuugi…” Mana asked. “What _are_ other places like? What—what is it like above the ground?”

The table fell silent.

Mana turned away from him briefly, as if she were embarrassed for asking. But when she met his gaze again her jaw was set, her eyes blazing with an intensity so hot and piercing that Yuugi felt it ricochet off his heart and rattle around his ribcage. She bit her lip. “I want to know what it’s like out there.”

“Well…” Yuugi began slowly. “That’s a tough question. It’s not great all the time. Sometimes people are mean, and sometimes people get hurt. Sometimes the reasons that people get hurt aren’t very good. But—” He closed his eyes. For a moment he was in the park with Anzu, playing on the swings, straining to see who could make it further off the ground. He was in the game shop, unpacking boxes with Grandpa and struggling to decide which one they would play first. “There are other times when it’s great—really, really great. It’s funny—all over the world there are some many amazing places you could go and things you could see, but when I think about it, all my happiest memories were within one block of my house.” He closed his eyes, and he was by the Pharaoh’s side, helping to piece together his broken heart, watching hope take root and blossom across his face. “Or, almost all of them, anyway.”

Yuugi was silent for a moment, but a small strawberry-red smile glowed on his lips and sent sparkles to his eyes. “I remember, this one time at school…I had just started junior high and I barely knew anyone. I was so scared…but one day we were having a school festival, and I brought one of our new games from the game shop. We all sat around the table, and we were all playing and laughing in no time.” Yuugi chuckled. “I love games because I love puzzles, and figuring things out. But I’ve also always loved how they—how they bring people together. No matter where I’ve been, those have always been my fondest memories.”

“Like senet!”

Yuugi turned to Mana in confusion. “What did you say?”

Mana stood, eyes wide, with one hand clapped over her mouth. The other trembled at her side. She was standing in the same long, gloomy hall, but in a moment—inexplicably—everything had changed.

“Like _senet_. The game we used to play—with the sticks and the marbles on the limestone block!” Cold, smooth stones between her fingers. She turned to the Pharaoh. “We used to play all the time! In your room in the afternoon, and we would play and then go out by the river and wade in the water—” Mischievous laughter. Splashing in the late afternoon light. “and you!” She spun around to face Mahaad. “You always told us to stop! You were afraid that we would get hurt…” Mud caked between her toes. Her damp hair falling in tangles and sticking to her neck and her shoulders. Mahaad’s reprimands—he always tried so hard to be serious—but they had a way of making him laugh.

Mana began to laugh like babbling water and dappled sunlight. She laughed so hard that her whole body shook—hard enough to make her heart break open. “Don’t—don’t you guys remember? We were all there!” She clutched her chest—suddenly aware of how hard she was breathing. “We were all there—on the beach, running through the halls…Do you—do you guys remember it at all?”

Isis stared for a moment at her hands, then lifted her face. When she faced them, her eyes were wide and gleaming. “I remember the fig trees in the courtyard…” She began quietly, as if afraid that the sound of her voice would chase the memories away. “I remember…watching the floods wash over the fields, and the harvest ceremony.” Her voice picked up, and she clenched her fists—clasping the precious moments between her fingers. “I remember waking up at dawn to watch the sunrise…” The sun was rising inside her now, illuminating the invisible landscape of her mind, dazzling her with a world overflowing with mirth and serenity—sun and air and running water. She blinked back tears. “I feel quite strange…”

Mana beamed at her, and for the first time in a thousand years of darkness, they recognized each other.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“I—I—“ Isis run her hands up and down her arms, shivered in her skin, and pressed her hand against her check—first cautiously, then with passionate wonder. “I am myself again, aren’t I?”

Mana nodded, smiled like a gleeful whisper. “I think we might be.”

Isis’ laughter trembled, then rolled and thundered like a landslide. She extended an arm, fingers shaking, across the table.

Once, in the years before the war, Isis had accompanied one of the Pharaoh’s trading vessels on a trip across the Mediterranean Sea. She had never before ventured beyond the palace walls, and she had longed, in the moments before her departure, to pack up all the thick palace walls, cool tile floors, and high elegant ceilings and take them with her. But she was a Priestess, one of the Pharaoh’s highest-ranking and most trusted advisors, so she did not allow her lips to tremble or her steps to waver as she watched her home dwindle away on the horizon. For a few days they had slid down the Nile, and Isis had been comforted by the gentle embrace of the surrounding shoreline. But out on the open water, tossed on jagged waves and thrashed with cold, endless onslaughts of wind, she had stood mute with terror, clawing at the mast as if her fingers could grind it into the familiar, comforting earth of her homeland.

That was how she clutched Mana’s hand now—as if, by holding her tightly enough, closely enough—that touch could take her back home. As if she was already there. She sobbed now, because she hadn’t allowed herself to cry back then, because for so many years he hadn’t known how.

Mana and Isis laughed and cried together as they watched their fingers intertwine. Then, with a flash of insight and a mischievous grin, Mana reached for the nearest bowl of fruit and dug her fingertips into the skin of a glistening red apple.

Her breath caught at the back of her throat. “I—I’m _touching_ it.”

Mana pressed the apple against her lips and paused, just for a moment, before biting it. She studied the imprints of her teeth, grinning. “This is amazing,” she whispered. “But it doesn’t feel as weird as I imagined it would. It feels—so normal…” She turned to the rest of the table. “Hey—Master—catch!”

Mahaad caught the apple before he realized what he had done. He stood, jaw hanging open, turning it over in his hands.

“It’s very—solid.” He whispered, voice swelling.

Mana bounced on the balls of her feet. “Try it! It’s _so_ good!”

Mahaad paused for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe her. He cradled the apple an inch below his nose. “This is not simply some form of magic—an illusion?”

“Oh, it’s pretty magical alright!” Mana beamed. “You _have_ to try it!”

Mahaad slowly sank his teeth into the apple. His face seemed to light up as he chewed it. “I had forgotten what this color looked like…” he mused, half to himself. “And what it tasted like.” His eyes flickered shut for a moment. “Now, I do not understand how I ever could have forgotten.” He smiled, somewhat wistfully, at his friends around the table. “To think, I have gone so long without ever realizing—what was here the entire time—” He turned to Seth and held the apple out across the table. “Take it.”

Seth bristled. “And reduce myself to the state of a blubbering imbecile like you?”

Mahaad rolled his eyes. “Priest, for once in your life, please put aside your insufferable vanity and—” He sighed, and his expression softened. “Just try it. Consider it a personal favor.”

A moment passed, in which Mahaad maintained a small, imploring smile, and Seth’s skeptical glare eventually went slack. “If this is some kind of trick…”

“It’s not a trick,” Mahaad grinned, placing the apple in front of Seth’s place at the table. “I promise.”

Seth glared down at the apple as if willing it to catch on fire or explode or disappear. Or perhaps he was hoping that he himself would vanish. He swallowed heavily, then extended a sole cautious finger, and, as if he were somewhat irritated by the spectacle of the whole ordeal, prodded the apple in the side.

“Alright—fine.” He huffed, crossing his arms and turning away, “I tried it.”

He couldn’t elude Mahaad’s smug laughter. “It’s better if you eat it.”

“Hey—hey!”

Yuugi almost jumped when he felt Mana prodding at his side.

“Hey—Yuugi, look!” Mana plunged her hand into the center of his plate, emerging with a fistful of french fries. “I can touch them! I can touch all of them!”

“That’s great, Mana. You should try them.”

Mana sank her teeth into a french fry and laughed. “This tastes nothing like the food we used to eat! But…I kind of like it.” She smiled. “Thanks, Yuugi.”

“Of course.”

“No, really—thank you.” She paused for a moment, then giggled. “Actually, I think I’m beginning to see why you like these things so much.” Her eyes danced with shades of the swirling emerald sea and blistering summer sky. She leaned against his ear and continued in a warm, bubbly whisper that bounced around Yuugi’s eardrum like a big, rubber ball. “Hey—I have an idea…”

Mana reached towards the center of the table and seized a handful of pomegranate seeds. She crushed one between her fingers then turned to Yuugi, put a finger to her lips, and winked.

“W-what was that for?!” Mahaad look around startled, still trying to brush away the pomegranate seed that had bounded off his cheek. “ _Mana_ —”

Mana giggled and interrupted Mahaad’s brewing reprimand with a pomegranate seed lobbed directly at the middle of his forehead. “You’re not fast enough, Master.” Mana laughed. “You’re supposed to _catch_ them.”

Mahaad’s expression darkened, and he scowled across the table, hoping to rally support from this compatriots but finding—from Isis (who was silently chuckling behind her hand) and Seth (who simply smirked and replied, “She does have a point, _Master_ ”) only a vaguely amused disinterest that amounted to—in his mind—an intolerable act of treachery.

“ _Alright_ ,” Mahaad’s voice seemed to curve and dart across the table, as he reached slowly, with a degree of fastidiousness and restraint that several at the table (mostly Seth) found painful to watch, for an innocuously placed bowl of almonds. “Ah, Mana--there is much you still have to learn in the art of combat,” Mahaad began, carefully measuring his words, gradually entrenching his fingers deeper in the bowl. “Please, allow me to instruct you.”

Before Mana had a moment to react, she was caught up in a brutal barrage of almonds. They seemed to come from all directions! And—suddenly—there were more: pistachios, hazelnuts, even grains of rice and bunches of grapes—all soaring through the air, upsetting bowls and overturning glasses.

Quickly depleting her stock of pomegranate seeds, Mana reached for loaves of bread, cubes of potato and onion, crumbs of cheese, and hurled them down the table with a kind of giddy, exuberant ferocity that made even the Pharaoh turn slightly pale.

If anyone had asked them later, none would have been able to recall how or why it had happened—they knew only that in the blink of an eye their dignified dinner party had erupted into a dazzling starburst of infectious laughter, a downpour of every kind of food and drink that any of them had ever been able to recall or imagine, and a series of stains on their best silk tablecloth that not even Mahaad’s finest sorcery would ever be able to rectify.

Yuugi too would have become lost in this fray, had it not been for the sight he glimpsed out of the corner of his eye—the Pharaoh’s small, gray smile, and the way he stared with such passionately feigned indifference at his own plate of bread and cottage cheese. When he caught Yuugi staring, he replied with a small, morose shrug. “You see, Yuugi,” he said, lifting his hand slightly above the plate, dropping it, allowing it to pass straight through without touching anything at all. “It does not work for me.” He smiled, briefly, through a sheen of gloom, then turned back to the table. “They seem to be enjoying themselves.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Yuugi.” The Pharaoh sighed, then looked down at the Pendant dangling around his neck. “It was a fleeting hope.”

“No, don’t say that.” Yuugi bit his lip. “I—I think I might have an idea. Come with me.”

-xxx-

“Yuugi, why did you take me here?” The Pharaoh’s voice echoed off the walls of the dueling chamber and seemed to dissolve into cold shadow. They could still hear the faint din emanating from the dining hall, but the sound felt distant and dry here. The Pharaoh walked between the stone tablets, gazing up at their ferocious faces—frozen forever in a river of time that had long since drifted on and left them behind—unmoved and untouched—for eternity. He frowned at them, then looked away abruptly.

“Well, I just remembered something that Priest Seth told me, about how the spirits ended up in these tablets in the first place. And I was thinking about what Grandpa told me…about how each of my Duel Monsters cards have their own spirit. And I was thinking of all of you, trapped in here together.” He paused, lingering in front of a tablet bearing a design remarkably similar to his own Celtic Guardian. “It just kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? You can’t ever be free so long as they’re all trapped down here.”

The Pharaoh frowned and furrowed his brow. “Are you suggesting that we—let the spirits go?”

Yuugi nodded. “Yes! That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

“But why?”

“You said yourself that you were nervous about your powers coming back, now that you know where they come from. I think you’ll always be afraid of getting your memories back so long as these spirits are still trapped here.” Yuugi turned to face him, and looking into his eyes, the Pharaoh suddenly thought of cool water and fresh air—the kind that blew directly off the water in a light, brisk gust. He shivered. “You’ll always feel guilty until you set them free.”

The Pharaoh stared at Yuugi, then slowly turned up to meet the glower of the Celtic Guardian. “I’m not sure that I know how.”

“Then we’ll get the others! I’m sure if all of us work together we’ll find a way to do it!” Yuugi’s smile fell when he saw how little it did to soothe the Pharaoh’s spirit, how he and the Celtic Guardian seemed to stand together as if they had both been suspended in stone. “I just want you to be happy,” Yuugi murmured. “Because you’re my friend.”

The Pharaoh turned to him, and while it looked like a question was forming on his lips, he remained silent. He frowned, turned back to the Celtic Guardian, and with a small shrug, placed his palm on the surface of the stone.

And then the world exploded.

Or at least, for a moment that was what Yuugi thought had happened. The ground shook, the walls rattled and set chunks of plaster raining down. A single crack sprouted at the Guardian’s feet, blue-white and electric like a bolt of lightning. It was quickly joined by another, then another, until the tablet was crisscrossed by surging rivers and roaring tributaries of thunderous, dazzling light.

With a clatter that made Yuugi’s ears ring, the stone fragments became loose and fell to the ground. What remained where the stone had stood was a towering figure of soft, sparkling mist. It reminded Yuugi of images he had seen of the Milky Way in his science textbooks—on the surface so dark and immense and frightening, but—if you looked into the places between the darkness—shimmering with a chaotic slurry of vibrant, sentient light. And yet, there was more to him than that. As Yuugi looked closer he could see a delicate network of veins and arteries, a field of firing neurons, and—emitting a light that seemed to swallow them all—his enormous, pounding heart.

The figure surveyed them for a moment with a kind of stern reverence. Then he bowed, nodded first to Yuugi, then to the Pharaoh, spread his arms, and began to soar up through the ceiling.

He dissolved into starbursts and sparks that fell down on them like summer rain.

Yuugi laughed. It was the only thing he could do. His laughter was the sound of the stars burning inside him.

“You have to do the rest of them! We have to go out there!”

“Yuugi, we can’t—we can’t simply _leave_.”

“Of course we can! Just look!” Yuugi pointed to the ceiling, and that was when the Pharaoh saw it—the hole the Celtic Guardian had left in the ceiling, and their gateway to the stars.

-xxx-

The Pharaoh staggered through the sand. “Yuugi!” He called. “Wait—please.”

Yuugi spun around and grinned at him. “Isn’t it amazing?!”

The Pharaoh took another deep breath. He gazed again at the horizon—wider and more empty than anything he had ever seen—at the sky—rich, warm, and infinitely deep. He looked at Yuugi, but it was more than looking. He wasn’t sure if he knew the word to describe it; he felt like he was fumbling around in darkness, feeling for the shape of something that he could not name or visualize. He ran his fingers through shadow, tracing the contours of whatever it was that was hiding inside him and wondering, desperately, what it would look like when he brought it out to examine in the light.

He didn’t know the word, but thought that perhaps, for now, he didn’t need to. All he knew was that looking at Yuugi was standing in the cool, open air. It was breathing in the starlight. It was watching the specters of his broken and shadowed past stream upwards into the sky and knowing that they were going exactly where they had always wanted to be.

“Look!” Yuugi said, pointing towards the sky. “It’s beautiful.”

The Earth had not stopped shaking since the Celtic Guardian had been released. Every few moments, another silver blast would break through the endless layers of ancient stone and sand and leap out into the sky, leaving behind a glistening cloud of pale blue stars.

“I never knew that I could do this,” The Pharaoh mused, finally catching up to Yuugi.

Yuugi looked up and winked at him. “I bet you’re glad you listened to me, huh?”

“I am, as always. It feels quite strange…” He paused. “Yuugi—”

“Hey, what’s going on?!” Yuugi and the Pharaoh turned to see Mana racing towards them. “Why are you out here? What’s—” She froze, face turned to the sky. “ _Wow_.”

“We let them go,” The Pharaoh replied. “All the spirits that have been trapped here.”

“It’s _beautiful_.” Mana wandered towards them, not quite able to take her eyes from the sky. “All of them?” She added quietly.

“All of the monsters we could find in the dueling chamber.” The Pharaoh frowned when he saw a trace of—something, another emotion he could not name— reflected in Mana’s face. “Mana, what is it?”

“Well, I mean…” She took a small step closer, looking away until the last moment, when she turned to face him. It was the first time the Pharaoh could recall that Mana had looked directly at him without flinching. “I mean…all of _us_?” The silhouettes of Isis, Mahaad, and Seth appeared in the distance behind her. “Can—can we go, too?”

“I—“ The Pharaoh did not know where to look. His face deflated slightly, his shoulders slumped. “I don’t know, Mana.”

“What is this?” Mahaad cried, gesturing towards the towering beams of light. “What’s going on?”

“All the spirits…”

“They’re free.”

They stood in a small knot. Their skin seemed to glow in the starlight. They marveled at the roundness of the earth, the rush of wind against their skin and through their hair, the way their feet left footprints in the sand.

“To think that we were all apart from this for so long…” Isis’ hand drifted to her collarbone. “If only we had known what we were relinquishing.”

“The matter was beyond our understanding,” Mahaad replied. “And beyond capacity to change it. But now, perhaps—”

“Maybe anything is possible.” Mana’s voice sparkled. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Yuugi and the Pharaoh.

“Look! Is that—” Yuugi’s voice disappeared into the white, rushing roar that made the air ring and resonate with triumph. Yuugi shivered and felt small under a pair of wings that stretched—like a second sky—to the far edges of the horizon. He felt as if he had been rattling an old, rusty lock that had suddenly and quite unexpectedly burst open in his hands. His eyes began to water, but Yuugi could not recall ever having cried like this before. Crying was cold, lonely, closed off, and afraid. But Yuugi didn’t cry for those things now—he cried for open doors, falling walls, the two halves of his Grandpa’s favorite card that were still nestled in his breast pocket—and the feeling that they weren’t quite so broken after all.

“The Blue-Eyes White Dragon?” Mahaad murmured, clasping Seth’s shoulder.

“She was always quite beautiful,” Seth whispered. He turned to Yuugi, and smiled.

The Pharaoh cleared his throat and spoke to Yuugi in a soft, slightly uncertain voice. “Um, Yuugi, I was wondering if you would join me over here for a moment?” He inclined his head in a direction away from the others.

Once they were out of the light of the departing spirits, the Pharaoh turned to Yuugi sharply. Even in the dim light Yuugi could see his eyes flare—but his expression burnt out quickly. For a moment he simply stared at Yuugi as if he could see directly through him.

“Yuugi,” he began slowly, “why do you not hate me?”

“W-what?! Why would I?”

The Pharaoh looked up at him with the intensity of a narrow obsidian blade. But when he spoke, his voice was melting ice—still cold, but rapidly dwindling away. “I trapped you here. Away from your family—your hopes and your dreams.” He sighed and gazed over at the other spirits. “I was so heartless and cruel. And yet, you never hated me, not even for a moment. Why?”

“Well, I—I don’t know, really. I was afraid of you. But—well, I guess I try to believe that everybody is capable of doing the right thing, once they realize what the right thing is.”

The Pharaoh nodded. His hand flickered at his side, as if about to reach for Yuugi’s. But he held back. “I understand that now. And that is why you must go.”

“Wha—but—your Pendant! We’re almost finished! In just a few more days I bet we could—”

The Pharaoh shook his head. “No, Yuugi. Look at all these spirits here. They were trapped in stone—I kept them here for so long. But now, they’re finally free. You told me that you chose to remain here because you were afraid to face the outside world—but, Yuugi—a stone tomb is no place for a living soul.” He closed his eyes, and recognized, at last, the object that he had been seeking. A small fissure of light fell upon his hand, and he could finally see the full shape and scale of what he held. He opened his eyes, and saw Yuugi. “That is why I must let you go.”

“But we’re so close—”

“I’m not so sure…” The Pharaoh gazed down at his Pendant. “What could I ever learn of the meaning of compassion—of love—by keeping you as my prisoner? By forcing you to reside here, paving my road to the afterlife, while your own life passes you by? Don’t you miss your own life, Yuugi? Your own time? You spoke so fondly of your home…”

Yuugi’s voice was small grains of sand scattered on the wind. “I do miss my grandpa.” He stared at the spirits grinning at one another in the starlight. They were more human than spirit now, perhaps now more human—Yuugi thought—than he himself had ever been. And just what had he planned to do when the Pharaoh’s Pendant was completed? No one had offered him a VIP pass to the ancient Egyptian afterlife. For that matter, no one had offered him a return flight to Domino, either. Yuugi suddenly felt the whole of the horizon narrowing down to a thin line, a path that pointed only one way.

“Yuugi…” The Pharaoh’s voice sounded so plaintive, so breakable and bleak. “The kind of life I have lived—if you could even call it living—hiding in shadows, refusing to face myself..” He rose slowly and stood directly in front of Yuugi, making it impossible for either of them to look away. “I would not wish that type of existence on anyone, especially you. Yuugi, you have given me so much. Please—let me—this is the one thing I can give to you.”

“But—you would just stay here forever—and—and I’d never see any of you again!”

“I know.” He turned away briefly, giving Yuugi just enough time to spot the tears forming in his eyes. “But we will have our memories of our time together.”

“You—you would do that for me?”

“It is the only thing I _can_ do.”

Yuugi gazed at the Pharaoh and somehow knew that they had stumbled upon the same set of guardrails.

An evil spirit had no need for handholds or instruction manuals. The dark magic of the Millennium Items blasted through every conceivable barricade. But the Pharaoh had discovered that humans had their own type of magic, a force strong enough to bend his heart and urge him to put down his rancor. Perhaps he could still shoot flames from his fingertips, perhaps he could still send a stab of fear into Yuugi’s heart.

But _could_ he? Somewhere in those hours reassembling his shattered Pendant, in the space between their fingertips, that desire had dried and fallen away, and the Pharaoh sensed—knew—that reviving his bloodlust would be as impossible as forcing the sun to set in the east. Dark magic, malicious spells, unconscionable power, a crown a throne and a sword—they seemed poor consolation prizes for renouncing the iron chains of love. He felt himself bound hand and foot, unable to act, to do anything at all, that violated the resounding chorus of his heart.

“Yes, Yuugi,” the Pharaoh repeated. “It is the only thing I can do. I think, if I encouraged you to remain here, I might entirely cease to exist…”

Yuugi nodded, and he understood. Because it was the same feeling that had urged him here, when he was so certain that he was Grandpa’s only hope of salvation.

They fumbled in the dark of unfocused freedom, but love, once found, could only lead them in one direction.

“And you will still have your stories.” The Pharaoh continued.

“Ha—you’re right.” Yuugi laughed softly. “I have a lifetime of new stories now. I wonder what I should tell the kids at school…” He stopped to study the Pharaoh’s face—to commit his every feature to memory. “You’ll remember me, won’t you?”

The Pharaoh nodded. “I couldn’t not.”

“Well, thank you. For everything.”

The Pharaoh took a tentative step forward, then placed his palm into Yuugi’s chest, the same way he had for each of the spirits trapped in the dueling arena. “Tell me, Yuugi,” he murmured, head sloped downward so that their foreheads nearly touched. “Where would you like to go?”

-xxx-

“Hey, where is Yuugi?”

The Pharaoh did not reply. He sank onto a boulder, rested his chin against his fist, and gazed at the sky. Some of the spirits were still skipping among the stars, tripping over each other’s tails, stretching their wings, taking their few first steps on feet and on paws that still suffered from eons of neglect, then setting aside the ache and the awkwardness and erupting into a sprint.

“Hey—Earth to Pharaoh!” Mana waved a hand in front of his face. “Did you hear me? Where’s Yuugi…? What happened…”

The Pharaoh turned towards her slowly. “Yuugi has returned home. To his grandpa.” The Pharaoh’s voice seemed to come from somewhere very deep and dark—the depths of the ocean, or a very deep and troubled sleep.

“W-what?!” Mana gaped. “Why? Did he—did you two fix the Pendant? Did you get your memories back?!”

“No.”

“Then—then why would he leave? Does….does he not like us anymore?”

The Pharaoh had returned his attention to the sky. “I let him go.”

“W-why?” Mana’s arms were shaking. “Why…”

“Because it was the right thing to do.”

“What’s going on?” Mahaad, quickly followed by Isis and Seth, glanced between Mana and the Pharaoh. “Mana, why are you upset?”

‘He—he let Yuugi go!” Mana cried, burying her face in her hands. “I-I never even got a chance to say goodbye. And now we’re going to be stuck here _forever_!” She tore off into the distance, looking neither at what lay behind her nor at where she was going.

“I should go find her…” Isis murmured, gently following Mana off into the darkness.

The Pharaoh sighed.

“Is this true?” Mahaad asked. “Has Yuugi really gone?”

“It’s true.” The Pharaoh replied. “I’m sorry. I know you were all looking forward to leaving the palace. But this was something that I had to do.”

“ _Sorry_?!” Seth spat. “You’re _sorry_?! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

“Seth, please…” Mahaad muttered.

The Pharaoh bowed his head. “I knew that this would be difficult news for you to hear. But believe me when I say that I did not have a choice. Letting Yuugi go was the right thing to do.”

“Great,” Seth huffed. “But what about _us_?! You couldn’t have held off your great barrage of moral insight until _after_ we’d gotten our lives back?!”

“No,” The Pharaoh looked up at him, eyes wide and slightly bewildered. “I couldn’t have. It’s really quite simple. I realized as I was watching these spirits here—” he gestured towards the spirits in the sky above them. “I could never overcome the darkness in my heart by holding anyone captive. Forcing Yuugi to help me revive my inner compassion would have been nothing but an exercise in futility…it would have been wrong…”

“But Yuugi was happy here,” Mahaad countered. “He said as such himself.”

The Pharaoh shrugged and sighed. “He was happy here because he has so rarely known happiness anywhere else.” He narrowed his eyes at Seth and Mahaad. “How could you expect him to remain happy here, when the two of you are so eager to leave?”

“Well—uh—” Mahaad and Seth exchanged a culpable expression.

“ _I_ never said I wanted to leave.” Seth declared, crossing his arms and scowling.

“Perhaps not in so many words, but…” The Pharaoh paused. “I am fairly certain that that was your true intention.”

Seth snorted.

“No, the Pharaoh is right.” Mahaad hung his head. “If our experiences with the evils of the Millennium Items have taught us anything, it is that we cannot use others as a tool to advance our own ends…” He watched Isis and Mana off in the distance. Isis was helping Mana up—she seemed to have stumbled over a rock.

Seth threw himself down on the sand. “So, that’s it? Now we just get to sit and rot here—forever?” He snorted. “In that case it would have been better if he’d never come at all.”

The Pharaoh looked down at him with a small frown. “Is that really the way you see it?” He leaned back on his boulder, a small smile gracing his lips and settling across his cheeks and eyelids. “Yuugi’s presence here has changed so much that I thought completely immutable. For the first time that I can remember, I feel hope, and happiness, and,” he brought his hand up to where the Pendant still hung, only partially formed, above his heart. “And loss. I thought I would never have an opportunity to experience any of those feelings again, I thought there would never be anything more to me than blind anger…But Yuugi has shown me that that doesn’t have to be the case. Can you really claim that things were better before than they are now? When we hardly knew each other, when we did not care? We’re… _friends_ now. It’s affected all of us. And scoff all you like, Priest, but I can see that the change has moved you, too. I’ve seen you give Mana pointers on her magic instead of scolding her, why, I’ve even seen your fondness for Master Mahaad—”

“Don’t say that,” Seth growled. “Don’t even _think_ it.”

The Pharaoh chuckled. “Well, you can try to continue to deny it. See how long you can last. But I don’t think it will be long before even you must pay heed to the invocation of your heart. And when the time comes, you too will discover that there is no concept of choice.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the stars drift across the sky.

“Hey—hey guys!” Mana came sprinting towards them, kicking up clouds of sand. “We had a great idea—come here!”

Mana and Isis stood in front of the Pharaoh, clutching the Millennium Necklace between them.

“We thought that since the Millennium Necklace can see into the future, maybe we could use it to see Yuugi again! To check up on him! And well,” she cast a sharp glance to the Pharaoh out of the corner of her eye. “Because some of us didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to him.”

The Millennium Necklace began to glow, and before any of them had a chance to predict which slice of Yuugi’s future might appear before them, they found themselves floating in the air, somewhere inside a dark and dazzling arena. Light and sound assaulted them from all directions, the walls and ceiling and even the air itself seemed to shake with waves of thunderous applause, shouts, and discordant, grisly music.

“Where are we?” Mahaad asked, wrinkling his nose is displeasure.

“Is this some kind of dueling arena?” The Pharaoh asked. His eyes darted among the faces in the crowd. “But where is Yuugi?”

“Look! There! Oh no— _Yuugi_!” Mana pointed to the far edge of the arena. They could just barely see Yuugi, slumped over and obscured in shadow, staggering towards them. His hair was in disarray, his face sported several cuts and bruises. As Yuugi stepped into the light, the entire arena seemed to warp with a roar of metallic, maniacal laughter.

“ _Yuugi_!” The Pharaoh felt his heart curl into a fist. “But— _why_!”

This vision vanished as quickly as it had come, and the spirits found themselves once against standing on the same Egyptian sands. In the silence that settled over them, they could still hear the laughter that had seemed to edge Yuugi on the brink of destruction like the brutal edge of a butcher knife.

 “Yuugi—” The Pharaoh continued to reach out, clasping at empty air, as if trying to claw through the enormous crevasse of space of time that separated them.

“What _was_ that?” Mana asked, voice dissolving. “You said that you sent him back to his grandpa! So how did he get _there_?!”

“I-I don’t know, Mana.” The Pharaoh chocked. “I _did_.”

“But he’s hurt! And he’s there are alone…”

The Pharaoh stamped his foot, sending torrents of sand flying in every direction. “Yuugi!” He roared. He yelled until his voice was flayed to cinders, until the stars blinked out like spent lumps of coal and the sand melted into glass. With every bellow he reached deeper into his lungs, straining for any remaining seam of darkness and destruction and despair and hurling it all until the very air around him was black and raw and sour.

And yet, he remained alone.

Yuugi was gone.

And the Pharaoh continued to call his name until his throat was dry and his veins were stripped and in tatters.

“We have to do something,” Mana whispered. “We have to help him!”

“What can we do?” Mahaad asked, voiced muddy and low. “Yuugi is gone.”

Isis pursed her lips. “Then we must go to him.”

Mana spun to face her. “Really?! We—can we really do that?”

Isis lowered her eyes. “I’m not sure what our magic is capable of. Before this evening I would not have known that we were capable of leaving the palace walls.” She turned to Mahaad. “Could your powers bring us to him?”

Mahaad shook his head. “The spell that entraps us here is very powerful. I think that if any of us were capable of breaking it, we would have succeeded quite some time ago. I know that I have certainly tried…”

“You tried before,” Mana added. “Before Yuugi came. Before we became—” She gestured towards their bodies, now nearly solid. She looked to the Pharaoh, nearly doubled over on the sand, still silently repeating Yuugi’s name. “Before we became like this.”

“I suppose that’s true…”

“Isn’t it worth a try?! We can’t just leave him there all alone, can we, Master?! No—” Mana’s jaw set, her eyes flared, and her staff appeared in her hand. “We can’t! Not after everything he’s done for us! Tell me what spell we need to get out of here and I’ll do it myself!”

“It’s very difficult magic, Mana.” Mahaad twitched slightly. “Even if were able to leave this land, I’m not sure what would become of us, since the spell itself has not been broken…”

“I don’t care! I just—I have to know that he’s alright! I have to see him again! I—I—” She paused as she felt the Pharaoh approach her. “It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? I—” She felt a wave was rising inside her, picking her up and carrying her to somewhere she had never expected to be. “We have to do it, don’t we? If someone doesn’t want to come then f-fine—but—but I have to help him. I—”

“I will come with you, Mana,” Seth spoke quickly, as if hoping to get the words out before he himself noticed that he had said them. “And I will offer him what assistance I can.”

“I will come,” Mahaad added.

Isis nodded.

“Well, that settles it then! Except—” Mana turned towards the Pharaoh slowly. He simply gripped the top of Mana’s staff.

“Alright, Mana,” He replied. “Take us to Yuugi.”

Mana beamed up at him. “Thank you.”

One by one, they placed their hands on Mana’s staff until it became warm and began to glow. Mana closed her eyes, pinched her lips, and tugged on her memories of summers in the sand, board games on the beach, remembering how to smile again, when she was so certain that she had forgotten how…

Her knees were shaking. Mana could feel her heart tremble and knew with a certainty she couldn’t describe that this was the feeling of it becoming lighter, and of her body becoming vulnerable, and becoming whole. She felt the Earth rattle through her like lightning, and somewhere, in the shaking, she felt a narrow hole—a tunnel.

She smiled, invisibly, to herself, suddenly understanding how their duel spirits felt when they had reached up into the sky. They were all going exactly where they needed to be.


End file.
